DOCSLIB.ORG

Geometry and Topology of Wild Translation Surfaces

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Geometry and Topology of Wild Translation Surfaces Anja Randecker Geometry and topology of wild translation surfaces Geometry and topology of wild translation surfaces by Anja Randecker Dissertation, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) Fakultät für Mathematik, 2016 Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 17. Juni 2015 Referenten: JProf. Dr. Gabriela Weitze-Schmithüsen, Prof. Dr. Frank Herrlich, JProf. Dr. Ferrán Valdez Impressum Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) KIT Scientific Publishing Straße am Forum 2 D-76131 Karlsruhe KIT Scientific Publishing is a registered trademark of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Reprint using the book cover is not allowed. www.ksp.kit.edu This document – excluding the cover, pictures and graphs – is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 DE License (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/ The cover page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives 3.0 DE License (CC BY-ND 3.0 DE): http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/de/ Print on Demand 2016 ISBN 978-3-7315-0456-6 DOI 10.5445/KSP/1000050964 Contents Introduction 1 1 Basics on translation surfaces 9 1.1 Translation surfaces . .9 1.2 Singularities of translation surfaces . 16 1.3 Ends of topological spaces . 26 1.4 Veech groups of translation surfaces . 34 1.5 Dynamics on translation surfaces . 39 2 Examples that are worth knowing 43 2.1 Chamanara surface . 43 2.2 Exponential surface . 50 2.3 Stack of boxes . 54 2.4 Slit constructions . 57 3 Ends of translation surfaces 71 3.1 Different types of ends . .. 71 3.2 Spaces of ends that can occur . 74 3.3 Relations between ends and singularities . 80 4 Around wild singularities 87 4.1 Topological and geometric properties of a neighborhood of a singularity . 87 4.2 Saddle connections in a dense set of directions . 91 4.3 Short saddle connections and xossiness . 94 4.4 Conditions for singularities to fulfill xossiness . .. 99 5 The influence of wild singularities on the genus 109 5.1 Saddle connections as a tool for detecting infinite genus. 109 5.2 Conditions for wild singularities to imply infinite genus. 118 6 Spaces of rotational components 127 6.1 Topological properties of rotational components . 127 6.2 Coarsening from ℒ(휎) to ℒ̃︀(휎) ................ 133 6.3 Every finite space occurs as space of rotational components . ................ 137 Bibliography 143 Index 149 Introduction The subject of this thesis, wild translation surfaces, is a very recent top- ic in mathematics. However, the first results in the classical theory of translation surfaces go back to the early 20th century. The objects were not called translation surfaces then but had different names over the years. This is due to the fact that translation surfaces arise in very different contexts which makes them particularly interesting. There are relations to dynamical systems, Teichmüller theory, algebraic geometry, topology, geometric group theory, and many other fields. The most visual way to define a classical translation surface isby considering finitely many polygons in the plane. If every edge ofthe polygons can be identified with a parallel edge of the same length so that we obtain a connected, orientable surface then the resulting object is a translation surface. It is locally flat at all points with the possible exception of the former vertices of the polygons. These exceptional points are called singularities and they are cone points of the resulting surface with cone angle 2휋푘 for some 푘 ≥ 2. Classical translation surfaces arise for example in the study of billiards in a polygon with rational angles, i.e. in a polygon with angles that are rational multiples of 휋. Fox and Kershner study billiard paths in such polygons in [FK36] by “unfolding” the polygon. This means they reflect the polygon across all edges, then reflect the images of the polygon across all images of the edges, and so on. The original, perhaps complicated billiard path in the polygon can then be considered as a straight line flow in this space of copies. To obtain a translation surface, Fox and Kershner choose a finite subset of these copies that constitute a fundamental domain under the group of reflections. The edges of the reflected polygons are identified via the product of the corresponding reflections which isinfact a translation. The condition on the rationality of the angles is important to guarantee that the fundamental domain consists of finitely many polygons. In Introduction particular, it ensures that the singularities of the resulting translation surface are cone points as discussed above. The unfolding construction of Fox and Kershner is described again by Katok and Zemlyakov in [ZK76] which leads to a number of articles, for instance [KMS86] by Kerckhoff, Masur, and Smillie which provides an ergodicity result on billiard paths. This is also where abelian differentials come into the theory. One obtains a translation structure on a Riemann surface by integrating over an abelian differential in neighborhoods of all points except for the zeros of the differential. The name “translation surface”, however, goes back to Thurston’s lecture notes [Thu81, Chapter 3] where he defines (퐺, 푋)-manifolds and 풢-manifolds without mentioning translation surfaces explicitly. In the related language of ℱ-structures, the translation surfaces occur again in the work of Veech. His article [Vee89] associates a group, now called Veech group, to a translation surface and relates the group to properties of the dynamics on the Teichmüller space. In [Vee90], Veech introduces the idea to use translation surfaces to estimate the volume of moduli spaces which opens up the field to algebraic geometry. Since then, the theory of classical translation surfaces has grown to a research field on its own with numerous mathematicians, including several Fields medalists, from algebraic geometry, dynamical systems, and geometric group theory working on it. Having spoken about the classical translation surfaces (which are called finite translation surfaces from now on) so far, a more general concept shines through along the way. In the literature, it is often called infinite translation surface but as the more general object it should have the more general name – translation surface – in the author’s view. The definition of a general translation surface is that it is a connected surface with a translation structure (see Definition 1.1). If we do not insist, for example, on rational angles then the unfolding of a polygon provides an infinite translation surface, studied by Valdez in [Val09] and [Val12]. As we have indicated in the discussion before, the singularities of the resulting translation surface do not need to be cone points. Another possibility to produce examples is to consider infinite coverings of finite translation surfaces as was done by Hubert and Schmithüsen in [HS10], by Hooper, Hubert, and Weiss in [HW12], [HHW13], and [HW13], 2 Introduction and by Frączek and Ulcigrai in [FU14], for example. A special example of this class of translation surfaces is the wind-tree model which goes back to a model of Ehrenfest and Ehrenfest that describes the movement of gaseous particles. Many different aspects of the wind-tree model are studied, for instance, by Avila, Delecroix, Hubert, Lelièvre, and Troubetzkoy in [DHL14], [HLT11], and [AHar]. In the two mentioned constructions, the singularities of the translation surfaces are not cone points in the strict sense any more but they can be considered as infinite angle analogs of cone points. For both kinds of cone points it is true that there exists a punctured neighborhood of the singularity which is a finite or infinite cyclic translation covering ofthe once-punctured flat disk. In [Cha04], Chamanara describes a first example of a family of transla- tion surfaces so that each translation surface in that family has a singularity which has no punctured neighborhood that is a translation covering of a once-punctured disk. In particular, every neighborhood of a singularity in that family has infinite genus and so the topology of the corresponding translation surface is more complicated but also raises more interesting questions. Singularities of this type are called wild and translation surfaces with wild singularities are called wild translation surfaces. Different examples of wild translation surfaces have then been studied, for instance arising as a geometric limit of the Arnoux-Yoccoz surfaces defined by Bowman inBow13 [ ] and arising from a generalization of Thurston’s construction (see [Thu88]) by Hooper in [Hoo15]. However, the systematic study of wild singularities started quite recently with the work of Bowman and Valdez. In [BV13], they define linear approaches and rotational components (see Section 1.2 for definitions) which makes it possible to study a wild singularity in terms of geodesic rays emanating from the singularity. In the theory of finite translation surfaces, an easy-to-prove but fasci- nating equation is true: the Gauß-Bonnet formula provides a correlation between the topology of translation surfaces and the geometry of their sin- gularities. In fact, the equation relates the genus and the cone angle of the singularities, without using any other information (see Proposition 1.14). A similar result on general translation surfaces would not only be nice in itself but could help to classify translation surfaces. For finite translation surfaces, there exists a well-established theory on moduli spaces and strata 3 Introduction of translation surfaces which has recently made a big leap with the results of Eskin, Mirzakhani, and Mohammadi in [EMM15] and of Eskin and Mirzakhani in [EM13]. Such a theory is desirable for general translation surfaces but there is still a lack of a good notion of moduli spaces and even more of strata of translation surfaces. To remedy this lack it seems natural to first study singularities (especially wild singularities) in more detail and establish relations between the singularities as a geometric object of a translation surface and the topology in terms of genus and ends.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Weak Mixing Properties of Interval Exchange Transformations & Translation Flows
    WEAK MIXING PROPERTIES OF INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS & TRANSLATION FLOWS ARTUR AVILA & MARTIN LEGUIL Abstract. Let d > 1. In this paper we show that for an irreducible permutation π which is not d−1 a rotation, the set of [λ] 2 P+ such that the interval exchange transformation f([λ]; π) is not weakly mixing does not have full Hausdorff dimension. We also obtain an analogous statement for translation flows. In particular, it strengthens the result of almost sure weak mixing proved by G. Forni and the first author in [AF]. We adapt here the probabilistic argument developed in their paper in order to get some large deviation results. We then show how the latter can be converted into estimates on the Hausdorff dimension of the set of \bad" parameters in the context of fast decaying cocycles, following the strategy of [AD]. Contents Introduction 2 1. Outline 4 2. Background 5 2.1. Strongly expanding maps 5 2.2. Projective transformations 6 2.3. Cocycles 6 2.4. Fast decay 7 2.5. Hausdorff dimension 7 2.6. Fast decay & Hausdorff dimension 7 3. Interval exchange transformations and renormalization algorithms 7 3.1. Interval exchange transformations 8 3.2. Translation surfaces 8 3.3. Veech's \zippered rectangles" construction 9 3.4. Rauzy classes 10 3.5. Rauzy induction and renormalization procedures 10 3.6. The Rauzy cocycle 11 3.7. Recurrence for RR, bounded distortion and fast decay 12 4. General weak mixing for interval exchange transformations & translation flows 14 4.1. Weak mixing for interval exchange transformations 14 4.1.1.
    [Show full text]
  • Unique Ergodicity for Infinite Area Translation Surfaces Alba Málaga Sabogal, Serge Troubetzkoy
    Unique ergodicity for infinite area Translation Surfaces Alba Málaga Sabogal, Serge Troubetzkoy To cite this version: Alba Málaga Sabogal, Serge Troubetzkoy. Unique ergodicity for infinite area Translation Surfaces. 2019. hal-02265283 HAL Id: hal-02265283 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02265283 Preprint submitted on 9 Aug 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIQUE ERGODICITY FOR INFINITE AREA TRANSLATION SURFACES ALBA MÁLAGA SABOGAL AND SERGE TROUBETZKOY Abstract. We consider infinite staircase translation surfaces with varying step sizes. For typical step sizes we show that the trans- lation flow is uniquely ergodic in almost every direction. Our re- sult also hold for typical configurations of the Ehrenfest wind-tree model endowed with the Hausdorff topology. In contrast, we show that the translation flow on a periodic translation surface can not be uniquely ergodic in any direction. 1. Introduction One of the most fundamental results in the theory of (compact) translation surfaces is the theorem of Kerchoff, Masur and Smillie which states that the geodesic flow on any compact translation surface is uniquely ergodic in almost every direction [KeMaSm]. The importance of this result is such that there are several articles explaining the proofs [Ar, GoLa, Mo] as well as [MaTa]).
    [Show full text]
  • INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS Contents 1. Rotations and Tori 2 1.1. Rotation and Their Coding 2 1.2. Induced Map, Substituti
    INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS VINCENT DELECROIX Abstract. These are lecture notes for 4 introductory talks about interval exchange transformations and translation surfaces given by the author in Salta (Argentina) in November 2016. Contents 1. Rotations and tori 2 1.1. Rotation and their coding 2 1.2. Induced map, substitutions and continued fractions 4 1.3. Suspensions 5 1.4. Further results 6 2. Interval exchange transformations and translation surfaces 7 2.1. Interval exchange transformations 8 2.2. Rauzy induction 8 2.3. Keane theorem 9 2.4. Translation surfaces and suspensions of iet 10 2.5. Strata, Teichm¨ullerflow and Rauzy-Veech induction 11 2.6. Best approximations 12 2.7. Notes and further results 12 3. Equidistribution 12 3.1. Crash course in ergodic theory 13 3.2. Invariant measures of interval exchange transformations 14 3.3. Linear recurrence and Boshernitzan condition 15 3.4. Vorobets identities 16 3.5. Notes and further results 19 4. Some generic properties of interval exchange transformations 19 4.1. How do we prove something for a generic translation surface? 19 4.2. Some results that hold for all translation surfaces 19 4.3. Masur asymptotic theorem for tori 20 4.4. Sketch of a proof of Kerckhoff-Masur-Smillie theorem 20 4.5. Notes and further results 21 5. Further reading and some open questions 21 6. Exercises 21 6.1. Word combinatorics and coding of interval exchange transformations 21 6.2. Permutations and Rauzy diagrams 22 6.3. Dynamics 23 6.4. Rotations 23 6.5. Linear recurrence and Boshernitzan condition 24 References 25 In this course, we will see interval exchange transformations from different perspectives, namely: (1) as a map of the interval, (2) as a Poincar´emap of a flow on a surface, (3) as a symbolic dynamical system.
    [Show full text]
  • RIGIDITY of SQUARE-TILED INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS Sébastien Ferenczi, Pascal Hubert
    RIGIDITY OF SQUARE-TILED INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS Sébastien Ferenczi, Pascal Hubert To cite this version: Sébastien Ferenczi, Pascal Hubert. RIGIDITY OF SQUARE-TILED INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS. Journal of modern dynamics, American Institute of Mathematical Sciences, 2019, 14, pp.153-177. hal-02120146 HAL Id: hal-02120146 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02120146 Submitted on 5 May 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. RIGIDITY OF SQUARE-TILED INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS SEBASTIEN´ FERENCZI AND PASCAL HUBERT ABSTRACT. We look at interval exchange transformations defined as first return maps on the set of diagonals of a flow of direction θ on a square-tiled surface: using a combinatorial approach, we show that, when the surface has at least one true singularity both the flow and the interval exchange are rigid if and only if tan θ has bounded partial quotients. Moreover, if all vertices of the squares are singularities of the flat metric, and tan θ has bounded partial quotients, the square-tiled interval exchange transformation T is not of rank one. Finally, for another class of surfaces, those defined by the unfolding of billiards in Veech triangles, we build an uncountable set of rigid directional flows and an uncountable set of rigid interval exchange transformations.
    [Show full text]
  • On the Critical Exponent of Infinitely Generated Veech Groups
    On the Critical Exponent of Infinitely Generated Veech Groups Ralf Lehnert We prove the existence of Veech groups having a critical exponent strictly greater 1 than any elementary Fuchsian group (i.e. > 2 ) but strictly smaller than any lattice (i.e. < 1). More precisely, every affine covering of a primitive L-shaped Veech surface X ramified over the singularity and a non-periodic connection point P 2 X has such a Veech group. Hubert and Schmidt ([HS04]) showed that these Veech groups are infinitely generated and of the first kind. We use a result of Roblin and Tapie ([RT13]) which connects the critical exponent of the Veech group of the covering with the Cheeger constant of the Schreier graph of SL(X)= StabSL(X)(P ). The main task is to show that the Cheeger constant is strictly positive, i.e. the graph is non- amenable. In this context, we introduce a measure of the complexity of connection points that helps to simplify the graph to a forest for which non-amenability can be seen easily. Contents Introduction . 2 1 Background on Translation Surfaces and Veech Groups . 3 1.1 Basic Definitions and Observations . 3 1.2 Veech Groups of Different \Sizes" . 5 1.3 Infinitely Generated Veech Groups . 7 2 Amenability of Graphs and the Combinatorial Laplacian . 9 2.1 Amenability of Graphs . 9 2.2 The Combinatorial Laplacian and the Cheeger Constant . 14 3 Critical Exponent and Graph-Periodic Manifolds . 16 3.1 The Critical Exponent . 16 3.2 From Hyperbolic Surfaces to Schreier Graphs . 18 4 Prototypes of Veech Surfaces in ΩM2(2) .
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:1912.08398V2 [Math.DS] 3 Mar 2021 Tions As Algebraic Curves, See Lee [6] for Further Details
    CONFORMAL GEOMETRY AND DYNAMICS An Electronic Journal of the American Mathematical Society Volume 00, Pages 000{000 (Xxxx XX, XXXX) S 1088-4173(XX)0000-0 TRANSLATION COVERS OF SOME TRIPLY PERIODIC PLATONIC SURFACES JAYADEV S. ATHREYA AND DAMI LEE Abstract. We study translation covers of several triply periodic polyhedral surfaces that are intrinsically Platonic. We describe their affine symmetry groups and compute the quadratic asymptotics for counting saddle connec- tions and cylinders, including the count of cylinders weighted by area. The mathematical study of triply periodic surfaces was initiated by Novikov, mo- tivated by the study of electron transport. The surfaces we consider are of particular interest as they admit several different explicit geometric and alge- braic descriptions, as described, for example, in the second author's thesis. 1. Introduction In this paper, we study translation covers of six intrinsically Platonic polyhedral surfaces. The objects of our interest are quotients of triply periodic polyhedral surfaces that arise in Lee [6]. We say a polyhedral surface Π is triply periodic, if ΛΠ = Π for some rank-three lattice of translations Λ ⊂ R3: We use Π to denote the infinite surfaces, and X := Π=Λ for the smallest compact quotients. The objects of our interest are those whose underlying surfaces X are compact with identifiable Riemann surface structures. The study of triply periodic surfaces arises in an important physical situation, known as Novikov's problem on understanding the geometry of sections of compact surfaces embedded in the 3-torus T3. Novikov's problem is motivated by semi- classical motion of an electron on the (periodic) Fermi surface of a metal under a magnetic field [10].
    [Show full text]
  • Arxiv:2012.12444V2 [Math.GT] 24 Aug 2021 4
    CANONICAL TRANSLATION SURFACES FOR COMPUTING VEECH GROUPS BRANDON EDWARDS, SLADE SANDERSON, AND THOMAS A. SCHMIDT Abstract. For each stratum of the space of translation surfaces, we introduce an infinite translation surface containing in an appropriate manner a copy of every translation surface of the stratum. Given a translation surface (X; !) in the stratum, a matrix is in its Veech group SL(X; !) if and only if an associated affine automorphism of the infinite surface sends each of a finite set, the \marked" Voronoi staples, arising from orientation-paired segments appropriately perpendicular to Voronoi 1-cells, to another pair of orientation-paired \marked" segments. p We prove a result of independent interest. For each real a ≥ 2 there is an explicit hyperbolic ball such that for any Fuchsian group trivially stabilizing i, the Dirichlet domain centered at i of the group already agrees within the ball with the intersection of the hyperbolic half-planes determined by the group elements whose Frobenius norm is at most a. Together, these results give rise to a new algorithm for computing Veech groups. Contents 1. Introduction 2 1.1. Canonical surface per stratum 2 1.2. Veech groups 2 1.3. New criterion for membership in Veech group 2 1.4. New result on construction of Dirichlet domains 3 1.5. Examples, and related ongoing work 3 2. Background 3 2.1. Translation surfaces 3 3. Canonical surface, Voronoi staples and a Veech group membership criterion 5 3.1. Canonical translation surface, O 5 3.2. Recovering (X; !) 6 3.3. Closed Voronoi 2-cells as convex bodies on O 9 3.4.
    [Show full text]
  • Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
    Interval exchange maps and translation surfaces Jean-Christophe Yoccoz Coll`egede France Introduction Let T be a 2-dimensional torus equipped with a flat Riemannian metric and a vector field which is unitary and parallel for that metric. Then there exists a unique lattice Λ ⊂ R2 such that T is isometric to R2=Λ and the vector field on T corresponds to the vertical vector field @ 2 @y on R =Λ. The corresponding \Teichm¨ullerspace" (classification modulo diffeomorphisms isotopic to the identity) is thus GL(2; R), viewed as the space of lattices equipped with a basis; the \moduli space" (classification modulo the full diffeomorphism group) is the homogeneous space GL(2; R)=GL(2; Z), viewed as the space of lattices in R2. The dynamics of the vertical vector field on R2=Λ can be analyzed through the return map to a non vertical closed oriented geodesic S on R2=Λ ; in the natural parameter on S which identifies S with T = R=Z (after scaling time), the return map is a rotation x 7! x + α on T for some α 2 T. When α2 = Q=Z, all orbits are dense and equidistributed on R2=Λ : the rota- tion and the vectorfield are uniquely ergodic (which means that they have a unique invariant probability measure, in this case the respective normalized Lebesgue measures on S and R2=Λ). In the irrational case, an efficient way to analyze the recurrence of orbits is to use the continu- ous fraction of the angle α. It is well-known that the continuous fraction algorithm is strongly related to the action of the 1-parameter diagonal subgroup in SL(2; R) on the moduli space SL(2; R)=SL(2; Z) of \normalized" lattices in R2.
    [Show full text]
  • Periodic Geodesics on Translation Surfaces
    Periodic geodesics on translation surfaces Yaroslav Vorobets 1 Introduction Let M be a compact connected oriented surface. The surface M is called a translation surface if it is equipped with a translation structure, that is, an atlas 2 of charts such that all transition functions are translations in R . It is assumed that the chart domains cover all surface M except for finitely many points called singular. The translation structure induces the structure of a smooth manifold, a flat Riemannian metric, and a Borel measure on the surface M punctured at the singular points. We require that the metric has a cone type singularity at each singular point; then the area of the surface is finite. The cone angle is of the form 2πm, where m is an integer called the multiplicity of the singular point. A singular point of multiplicity 1 is called removable; it is rather a marked point than a true singularity of the metric. Furthermore, the translation structure allows us to identify the tangent 2 space at any nonsingular point x ∈ M with the Euclidean space R . In par- ticular, the unit tangent space at any point is identified with the unit circle 1 2 S = {v ∈ R : |v| = 1}. The velocity is an integral of the geodesic flow with respect to this identification. Thus each oriented geodesic has a direction, which is a uniquely determined vector in S1. The direction of an unoriented geodesic is determined up to multiplying by ±1. Suppose X is a Riemann surface (one-dimensional complex manifold) home- omorphic to the surface M.
    [Show full text]
  • Rigidity of Square-Tiled Interval Exchange Transformations
    JOURNALOF MODERN DYNAMICS doi: 10.3934/jmd.2019006 VOLUME 14, 2019, 153–177 RIGIDITY OF SQUARE-TILED INTERVAL EXCHANGE TRANSFORMATIONS SÉBASTIEN FERENCZI AND PASCAL HUBERT To the memory of William Veech whose mathematics were a constant source of inspiration for both authors, and who always showed great kindness to the members of the Marseille school, beginning with its founder Gérard Rauzy ABSTRACT. We look at interval exchange transformations defined as first re- turn maps on the set of diagonals of a flow of direction θ on a square-tiled surface: using a combinatorial approach, we show that, when the surface has at least one true singularity both the flow and the interval exchange are rigid if and only if tanθ has bounded partial quotients. Moreover, if all vertices of the squares are singularities of the flat metric, and tanθ has bounded partial quotients, the square-tiled interval exchange transformation T is not of rank one. Finally, for another class of surfaces, those defined by the unfolding of billiards in Veech triangles, we build an uncountable set of rigid directional flows and an uncountable set of rigid interval exchange transformations. INTRODUCTION Interval exchange transformations were originally introduced by Oseledec [30], following an idea of Arnold [2], see also Katok and Stepin [24]; an exchange of k intervals is given by a positive vector of k lengths together with a permuta- tion ¼ on k letters; the unit interval is partitioned into k subintervals of lengths ®1,...,®k which are rearranged according to ¼. The history of interval exchange transformations is made with big generic re- sults: almost every interval exchange transformation is uniquely ergodic (Veech [36], Masur [28]), almost every interval exchange transformation is weakly mix- ing (Avila-Forni [6]), while other results like simplicity [37] or Sarnak’s conjecture [34] are still partly in the future.
    [Show full text]
  • Translation Surfaces: Saddle Connections, Triangles and Covering Constructions
    TRANSLATION SURFACES: SADDLE CONNECTIONS, TRIANGLES AND COVERING CONSTRUCTIONS A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Chenxi Wu August 2016 c 2016 Chenxi Wu ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TRANSLATION SURFACES: SADDLE CONNECTIONS, TRIANGLES AND COVERING CONSTRUCTIONS Chenxi Wu, Ph.D. Cornell University 2016 In these thesis we prove 3 results on the dynamics of translation surfaces. Firstly, we show that the set of the holonomy vectors of saddle connections on a lattice surface can not satisfy the Delone´ property. Smillie and Weiss showed that ev- ery lattice surface has a triangle and a virtual triangle of the minimal area. We calculate the area of the smallest triangle and virtual triangle for many classes of lattice surfaces, and describe all lattice surfaces for which the area of virtual trian- gle is greater than an explicit constant. Many interesting examples of translation surface can be obtained through deforming abelian covers of the pillowcase. We calculate the action of affine diffeomorphism group on the relative cohomology of an abelian cover of the pillowcase, extending the previous calculation. Lastly, we use this calculation to give a characterization of the Bouw-Moller¨ surfaces. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Chenxi Wu was born and raised in Guangzhou, China.,He did undergraduate studies in Mathematics at Peking university from 2006-2010, and began graduate studies in Mathematics at Cornell University in August 2010. iii This thesis is dedicated to my teachers, classmates, and friends. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I warmly thank his thesis advisor John Smillie for his great contribution of knowl- edge, ideas, funding and time.
    [Show full text]
  • Veech Surfaces and Complete Periodicity in Genus Two
    JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 17, Number 4, Pages 871{908 S 0894-0347(04)00461-8 Article electronically published on August 17, 2004 VEECH SURFACES AND COMPLETE PERIODICITY IN GENUS TWO KARIANE CALTA 1. Introduction A translation surface is a pair (M;!)whereM is a closed Riemann surface and ! is an Abelian differential on M. Away from the zeros of !,achartz can be chosen so that ! = dz, and this determines a Euclidean metric in that chart. The change of coordinates away from the zeros of ! are of the form z ! z + c.Inthe neighborhood of a zero, one can choose a coordinate z so that ! = zkdz. The total angle about this zero is 2(k+1)π and the order of the zero is k. Such a zero is called a conical singularity. As a result of this definition, a translation surface can also be thought of as a two-manifold with transition functions which are translations and which has a finite number of conical singularities, arising from the zeros of !.Each of these singularities has total angle 2πn for n 2 Z+. Thus, one can also think of a translation surface as a finite number of polygons in the plane R2, glued along parallel sides. Throughout, we will often denote a translation surface by S,and this notation should be thought of as incorporating both the Riemann surface M and the differential !. If S is a translation surface, a saddle connection is a geodesic connecting two (not necessarily distinct) conical singularities of S which has no singularities in its interior.
    [Show full text]