On certain semigroups of hyperbolic isometries (Q749682)

Two isometries A and B of the hyperbolic plane are said to be co-parallel if they have disjoint axes and the motions along these axes induce the opposite orientations on the regions they bound. The authors consider the semigroup S consisting of all isometries obtained as finite compositions of A and B. Two elements of S are said to be equivalent if they contain the same number of A's and the same number of B's. The main result is that within each equivalence class in S there is an element unique up to conjugation (cyclic permutation of the letters A and B) that has maximal translation length. The result can be applied to compare the lengths of the closed geodesics on certain hyperbolic surfaces.