Moduli spaces of convex projective structures on surfaces (Q854102)

Let \(S\) be an orientable compact smooth surface, possibly with boundary. A projective structure on \(S\) is defined by an atlas on the interior \(S_0\) of \(S\) whose transition functions are given by projective transformations. For any projective structure, there is an associated developing map \(\phi:\widetilde{S}_0\to\mathbb{R}\mathbb{P}^2\), where \(\widetilde{S}_0\) is the universal cover of \(S_0\). A projective structure is called convex if the developing map is an embedding and its image is a convex domain, that is a domain \(D\) in \(\mathbb{R}\mathbb{P}^2\) such that any line intersects \(D\) in an interval, possibly empty or reducing to a single point. The spaces of convex projective structures on surfaces without boundary have been studied by a number of authors. When \(S\) has non-empty boundary, these spaces may be infinite dimensional and it is necessary to impose boundary conditions to achieve finite dimensional moduli spaces. In this paper, the authors study convex projective structures on hyperbolic surfaces with non-empty boundary and require that the boundary be geodesic, that is that the developing map can be extended to the boundary and the image of any boundary component is either a line segment or a point; in the latter case, the boundary component is called degenerate. They consider the moduli space \({\mathcal T}_3^+(S)\) of convex projective structures on \(S\) with framed geodesic boundary, that is a geodesic boundary for which each non-degenerate boundary component is assigned an orientation, and introduce a distinguished collection of global coordinate systems on \({\mathcal T}_3^+(S)\), each of which identifies \({\mathcal T}_3^+(S)\) with \({\mathbb R}^{8\chi(S)}\). Moreover the moduli space is naturally isomorphic to the higher Teichmüller space \(\chi_{G,s}({\mathbb R}_{>0})\) for the group \(G=\text{ PGL}_3\), introduced by the authors in [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Études Sci. 103, 1--211 (2006; Zbl 1099.14025)]. The corresponding monodromy representations are discrete and regular hyperbolic. The authors study also the universal higher Teichmüller space \({\mathcal T}_3\) which contains the moduli spaces \({\mathcal T}_3^+(S)\) for all surfaces \(S\). It is acted on by the Thompson group \({\mathbb T}\), which is the group of all piecewise \(\text{ PSL}_2({\mathbb Z})\)-projective automorphisms of \({\mathbb P}^1({\mathbb Q})\) and which plays here the rôle of a mapping class group, and this action preserves a natural Poisson structure. In fact \({\mathcal T}_3\) is the set of \({\mathbb R}_{>0}\)-points of a certain infinite dimensional cluster \(\chi\)-variety as defined in [math.AG/0311245] and the Thompson group is a subgroup of the mapping class group of this cluster variety. The situation for the spaces \({\mathcal T}^+_3(S)\) is a bit more complicated; they have orbi-cluster structure and the mapping class group of \(S\) is a subgroup of the corresponding group for the cluster \(\chi\)-space. In the final section of the paper, the authors quantise these moduli spaces.