Compatible pants decomposition for SL₂(C) representations of surface groups

DOI10.4171/GGD/797MaRDI QIDQ6924841zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Renaud Detcherry, Thomas le Fils, Ramanujan Santharoubane

Publication date 26 September 2025

Published in Groups, Geometry, and Dynamics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.4171/GGD/797

zbMATH Keywords

mapping class groupsurface group representations

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

2-dimensional topology (including mapping class groups of surfaces, Teichmüller theory, curve complexes, etc.) (57K20) Invariants of 3-manifolds (including skein modules, character varieties) (57K31)

Review text

Let \(\Sigma\) be a closed oriented surface of genus at least \(2\). The main result of the present paper states as follows: for any irreducible representation \(\rho:\pi_1(\Sigma)\to G\) with \(G=\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{C})\) or \(\mathrm{SO}_3\), there exists a pants decomposition \(\mathcal{P}\) of \(\Sigma\) such that for any curve \(c\in\mathcal{P}\), the elements \(\pm\rho(c)\) are not unipotent, and the restriction of \(\rho\) to \(\pi_1(P)\) is irreducible for each pants \(P\) in \(\mathcal{P}\). Furthermore, if the image of \(\rho\) is not conjugated to the quaternion group, then \(\mathcal{P}\) can be chosen to be of \textit{sausage type}, meaning to lie in the orbit of a certain special decomposition under the action of the mapping class group.\N\NThis result played an important role in [\textit{R. Detcherry} and \textit{R. Santharoubane}, Geom. Topol. 29, No. 1, 313--348 (2025; Zbl 1573.57045)], and was motivated by the study of the Azumaya locus of skein algebras of surfaces at roots of unity. The proof largely builds on the previous works [\textit{D. Gallo} et al., Ann. Math. (2) 151, No. 2, 625--704 (2000; Zbl 0977.30028); \textit{J. P. Previte} and \textit{E. Z. Xia}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 354, No. 6, 2475--2494 (2002; Zbl 1089.53059)].

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Cited in

(1)

• An embedding of skein algebras of surfaces into localized quantum tori from Dehn-Thurston coordinates

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