Neck-Pinching of CP^1-structures in the PSL(2,C)-character variety

Abstract: We characterize a certain neck-pinching degeneration of (marked)

C P^{1}

- structures on a closed oriented surface S of genus at least two. Namely, we consider a path

C_{t}

of

C P^{1}

-structures on S leaving every compact subset in the deformation space of (marked)

C P^{1}

-structures on S, such that its holonomy converges in the PSL(2, C)-character variety. In this setting, it is known that the complex structure

X_{t}

of

C_{t}

also leaves every compact subset in the Teichm"uller space. In this paper, under the assumption that

X_{t}

is pinched along a single loop m, we describe the limit of

C_{t}

in terms of the developing maps, holomorphic quadratic differentials, and pleated surfaces. Moreover, we give an example of such a path

C_{t}

whose limit holonomy is the trivial representation in the character variety.

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