The diameter of the thick part of moduli space and simultaneous Whitehead moves

DOI10.1215/00127094-2323128MaRDI QIDQ2393592zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Kasra Rafi, Jing Tao

Publication date 8 August 2013

Published in Duke Mathematical Journal (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4150, https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.dmj/1373546605, http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.755.9273

zbMATH Keywords

Lipschitz metricmetric graphpants decompositionsimultaneous Whitehead moveTeichmüller metricthick part of moduli space

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Graph algorithms (graph-theoretic aspects) (05C85) Fundamental groups and their automorphisms (group-theoretic aspects) (20F34) Moduli of Riemann surfaces, Teichmüller theory (complex-analytic aspects in several variables) (32G15)

Abstract: Let S be a surface of genus g with p punctures with negative Euler characteristic. We study the diameter of the $epsilon$-thick part of moduli space of S equipped with the Teichm"uller or Thurston's Lipschitz metric. We show that the asymptotic behaviors in both metrics are of order $logfracg+pepsilon$. The same result also holds for the $epsilon$-thick part of the moduli space of metric graphs of rank n equipped with the Lipschitz metric. The proof involves a sorting algorithm that sorts an arbitrary labeled tree with n labels with simultaneous Whitehead moves, where the number of steps is of order log(n).

Review text

Let \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}\) be the moduli space of the complete, finite volume, hyperbolic surfaces of genus \(g\) with \(p\) labeled punctures. The \(\epsilon\)-thick part \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}\) is the space of surfaces in \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}\) the systole of which has length at least \(\epsilon\), where \(\epsilon \leq \epsilon_M\), the Margulis constant. The authors study the diameter of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) equipped with the Teichmüller metric or the Lipschitz metric (both are \(L^{\infty}\)-metrics) and show that it is of order \(\log((g+p)/\epsilon)\) in both metrics. Also the width and the height of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) are obtained asymptotically. Here the width of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) is the diameter of the set \(\mathcal{B}_{g,p}\) of surfaces in \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) which admit a pants decomposition consisting of curves of length \(\epsilon_M\); the height of \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) is the Hausdorff distance between \(\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^{\epsilon}\) and \(\mathcal{B}_{g,p}\). The authors consider the space Graph\((g,p)\) of graphs of rank \(g\) with \(p\) marked valence 1 vertices and \((2g-2+p)\) valence 3 vertices associated to the surfaces in \(\mathcal{B}_{g,p}\). It is shown that the diameter of Graph\((g,p)\) equipped with the metric of simultaneous Whitehead moves is of the same order as that of \(\mathcal{B}_{g,p}\). For the proof the authors introduce two algorithms for transforming trees by simultaneous Whitehead moves to reduce their heights and to get fully sorted trees. The result that expander graphs are not coarsely equidistributed in Graph\((g)\) is implied by the order of the length of dividing curves on a surface in \(\mathcal{B}_g\) associated to an expander graph. The asymptotic diameter of the \(\epsilon\)-thick part of the moduli space of metric graphs is also studied in the Lipschitz metric. Furthermore the asymptotic diameters of Graph\((g,p)\) and of Graph\((g,p)\)/Sym\(_p\) (unlabeled punctures) in the metric of Whitehead moves are established.

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Cited in

(14)

• Local maxima of the systole function
• Upper bound on distance in the pants complex
• On the Finsler structure of Teichmüller's metric and Thurston's metric
• The moduli space of Riemann surfaces of large genus
• Growth of the Weil-Petersson inradius of moduli space
• Uniform growth rate
• Relative shapes of thick subsets of moduli space
• A flexible theoretical representation for the temporal dynamics of structured populations as paths on polytope complexes
• Small eigenvalues of closed Riemann surfaces for large genus
• The geometry of flip graphs and mapping class groups
• The duality between color and kinematics and its applications
• The shape of the filling-systole subspace in surface moduli space and critical points of the systole function
• Expansion properties of Whitehead moves on cubic graphs
• The double copy effective action: a quantum (chromodynamics) approach to space-time

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