Grafting hyperbolic metrics and Eisenstein series (Q927276)

\textit{L. Bers} [Proc. 1973 Conf. Univ. Maryland, 43--55 (1974; Zbl 0294.32016)] considered certain degenerating families of marked hyperbolic structures. He found that away from collars about short geodesies the structures limit to hyperbolic structures with cusps with neighborhoods of cusps removed. Expansions have been presented for such degenerating families of hyperbolic structures. The authors combine the approaches of \textit{S. A. Wolpert} [J. Differ. Geom. 31, No.~2, 417--472 (1990; Zbl 0698.53002)] and \textit{M. Wolf} [J. Differ. Geom. 33, No.~2, 487--539 (1991; Zbl 0747.58026)] to present an explicit expansion in terms of the hyperbolic metrics of fibers of the plumbing family \(\mathcal V_0\) and the nonholomorphic Eisenstein series \(E(\zeta; 2)\). Beginning with a Riemann surface \(R\) with a formal pairing of \(n\) pairs of punctures (additional unpaired punctures of \(R\) are permitted), the authors use the fiberwise gluing of \({\mathcal V}_0\) to \(R\) -- \{cusp neighborhoods\} to construct a degenerating family \(\{R_t\}\). The authors then use geometric-interpolation to combine the \({\mathcal V}_0\) fiber metrics with the \(R\) metric to form grafted metrics \(dg_t^2\). A counterpart interpolation the \textit{melding} is introduced for the Eisenstein series. The construction differs from Thurston's grafting of projective structures for Riemann surfaces. The authors then use uniqueness properties for the prescribed curvature equation to show that the grafted metric and meldings combine to provide an expansion. Applications include an asymptotic expansion for the Weil-Petersson metric and a local form of symplectic reduction.