## Joint Seminar on Teichmüller theory and Related topics

This is the main page for the Joint Seminar on Teichmüller theory and Related topics (JSTeichR), organized by:

Here's the attendance information for the seminar series:

• Time: Monday, 15:30 PM (Beijing time).
• Place: online.
• Zoom: 405 416 0815, pw: 111111

## Upcoming seminar/s

### Holiday Break!

We're taking a break from seminars during the winter holidays. Seminars will return in 2023!

## Past seminars

#### Zhe SUN (University of Science and Technology of China 中国科学技术大学), 2022-12-26, Intersection number of dual $$\mathrm{SL}_3$$-webs

The trace functions of multicurves form a linear basis of $$\mathrm{SL}_2$$ character variety of surface group. The $$\mathrm{SL}_3$$ analogue of the multicurves are the $$\mathrm{SL}_3$$ webs. The Fock-Goncharov-Shen duality in this case says that the tropical integral points of decorated punctured $$\mathrm{SL}_3$$ character variety parameterize the canonical linear basis of the regular function ring of the $$\mathrm{SL}_3$$ character variety. In this talk, firstly I will explain my joint work with Daniel Douglas where we relate both sides to the $$\mathrm{SL}_3$$-webs. Then I will explain my joint work with Linhui Shen and Daping Weng, where we give a topological intersection number for webs which allows us to prove the mutation equivarience of the bijection between webs and tropical points.

#### Ingrid IRMER (Southern University of Science and Technology 南方科技大学), 2022-12-19, A mapping class group-equivariant deformation retraction of Teichmüller space

Teichmüller space is a simply connected manifold that admits an action of the mapping class group. It is known that there exist mapping class group-equivariant deformation retractions of Teichmüller space onto cell complexes (spines) of nonzero codimension. The virtual cohomological dimension of the mapping class group is approximately two thirds of the dimension of Teichmüller space and gives a lower bound on the dimension of such a spine. This talk will prove that this lower bound is realised for Teichmüller spaces of closed, orientable, hyperbolic surfaces.

#### Nathaniel SAGMAN (University of Luxembourg), 2022-12-12, Hitchin representations and minimal surfaces

Labourie proved that every Hitchin representation into $$\mathrm{PSL}(n,\mathbb{R})$$ gives rise to an equivariant minimal surface in the corresponding symmetric space. He conjectured that uniqueness holds as well (this was known for $$n=2,3$$, and explained that if true, then the Hitchin component admits a mapping class group equivariant parametrization as a holomorphic vector bundle over Teichmüller space. After giving the relevant background, we will explain that Labourie’s conjecture fails for n at least 4, and point to some future questions.

#### Mike WOLF (Georgia Institute of Technology), 2022-12-06, Asymptotics of surface group representations along rays

Hitchin's theory of Higgs bundles associated holomorphic differentials on a Riemann surface $$(S,J)$$ to representations of the fundamental group of the surface $$S$$ into a Lie group. We study, in a pair of very low rank settings, the geometry common to representations whose associated holomorphic differentials are on a ray of differentials. In the setting of $$\mathrm{SL}(3,\mathbb{R})$$, we provide a formula for the asymptotic holonomy of the representations in terms of the local geometry of the differential; the formula has a tropical flavor which we do not develop. Alternatively, we show how the associated equivariant harmonic maps to a symmetric space converge to a harmonic map to a building, with geometry determined by the differential. All of this is joint work with John Loftin and Andrea Tamburelli.

#### Wenyuan YANG 杨文元 (Beijing International Center of Mathematical Research, Peking University), 2022-11-28, Conformal density for mapping class groups

In 1976, S. Patterson introduced a class of conformal measures on the limit set of Fuchsian groups, and further developed by D. Sullivan in Kleinian groups with various applications in spectral geometry, Mostow rigidity, geodesic flows and complex dynamics etc. These now called Patterson-Sullivan measures are important instances of conformal density. In this talk, we will explain how to establish a theory of Patterson-Sullivan measures on the Thurston and Gardiner-Masur boundaries for mapping class groups. In particular, the Shadow Lemma and Hopf-Tsuji-Sullivan theorem are obtained for any non-elementary subgroups. Our approach is general and works for any discrete group action on metric spaces with contracting elements.

#### Greg MCSHANE (Institut Fourier, Université Grenoble Alpes), 2022-11-21, Arcs, lambda lengths and arithmetic

A famous theorem of Fermat says that  a prime number $$p$$ can be written as a sum of squares $$a^2 + b^2$$ if and only if $$p$$ is 2 or $$p-1$$ is divisible by $$4$$.

In the 80s R. Heath-Brown gave a proof of this result by studying the action of a group of order 4 on a finite set.

We'll explain another proof of this result based on the automorphisms of the 3 punctured sphere. An important ingredient in our approach is the use of Penner's  lambda lengths.

We'll also show how this is related to Button's partial result on the Markoff unicity conjecture: a Markoff number is unique if it is prime.

#### Francisco Andres ARANA-HERRERA (University of Maryland), 2022-11-15, The shapes of complementary subsurfaces to simple closed geodesics

Cutting a hyperbolic surface along a simple closed geodesic yields a hyperbolic structure on the complementary subsurface. We study the distribution of the shapes of these subsurfaces in moduli space as boundary lengths go to infinity, showing that they equidistribute to the Kontsevich measure on a corresponding moduli space of metric ribbon graphs. In particular, random subsurfaces look like random ribbon graphs, a law which does not depend on the initial choice of hyperbolic surface. This result strengthens Mirzakhani’s famous simple close multi-geodesic counting theorems for hyperbolic surfaces. This is joint work with Aaron Calderon.

#### Dawei CHEN 陈大卫 (Boston College), 2022-11-08, Volumes of moduli spaces of differentials

An abelian differential induces a flat metric with conical singularities such that the underlying surface can be realized as a polygon whose edges are pairwise identified via translations. Period coordinates arising from edges of the polygons induce a volume form on moduli spaces of abelian differentials with prescribed cone angles, called the Masur—Veech volume form. This talk will introduce various approaches to compute Masur—Veech volumes of moduli spaces of abelian differentials, with a focus on the interplay between algebraic geometry, analytic geometry, combinatorics, and Teichmüller dynamics.

#### Yue GAO 高悦 (Anhui Normal University 安徽师范大学), 2022-10-31, Shape of Thurston's filling systole subset in surface moduli space

In this talk, I am going to talk about the sparseness of Thurston's subset. Sparseness is a geometric concept on Thurston's subset firstly raised by Anderson-Parlier-Pettet in 2016. We have proved the sparseness of Thurston's subset in the sense of Teichm\"uller distance and Weil-Petersson distance. More precisely, most surfaces in genus g surface moduli space have Teichmüller distance $$\frac{1}{5}\log\log g$$ and Weil-Petersson distance $$0.6521(\sqrt{\log g}-\sqrt{7\log\log g})$$ to the Thurston's subset. Some recent progresses on random surface (Mirzakhani-Petri, Nie-Wu-Xue) and estimate of the Weil-Petersson distance by systole (Wu) are important tools in our proof.

#### Huiping PAN 潘会平 (South China University of Technology 华南理工大学), 2022-10-24, Ray structures on Teichmüller space

Teichmüller space admits several ray structures. In this talk, we first depict harmonic map ray structures on Teichmüller space as a geometric transition between Teichmüller ray structures and Thurston geodesic ray structures. In particular, by appropriately degenerating the source of a harmonic map between hyperbolic surfaces (along "harmonic map dual rays"), the harmonic map rays through the target converge to a Thurston geodesic; by appropriately degenerating the target of the harmonic map, those harmonic map dual rays through the domain converge to Teichmüller geodesics. While there may be many Thurston metric geodesics between a pair of points in Teichmüller space, we find that by imposing an additional energy minimization constraint on the geodesics, thought of as limits of harmonic map rays, we select a unique Thurston geodesic through those points. Extending the target surface to the Thurston boundary yields, for each point Y in Teichmüller space, we construct an "exponential map" of rays from that point Y onto Teichmüller space with visual boundary the Thurston boundary of Teichmüller space. This is a joint work with Michael Wolf (arXiv:2206.01371).

#### Lei CHEN 陈蕾 (University of Maryland), 2022-10-18, Maps between configuration spaces and moduli spaces

In this talk, I will survey what is known or conjectured about maps between configuration spaces and moduli spaces of surfaces. Among them, we consider two categories: continuous maps and also holomorphic maps. We will also talk about some results and conjectures about maps between finite covers of those spaces. Unlike the case of the whole spaces, much less is known about their finite covers.

#### Yilin WANG 王艺霖 (Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques), 2022-10-10, From SLE to Weil-Petersson Universal Teichmüller space

The universality of Brownian motion underlies the appearance of SLE in conformally invariant 2D systems. The action functional of Brownian motion, namely the Dirichlet energy, corresponds to the Loewner energy for a Jordan curve. This energy, intuitively speaking, measures the roundness of a Jordan curve and the density of SLE around the curve. Furthermore, this energy is shown by Takhtajan and Teo to be a Kahler potential on the space of Weil-Petersson quasicircles, identified with the Weil-Petersson universal Teichmüller space. I will overview different geometric and probabilistic descriptions of the Loewner energy and Weil-Petersson Teichmüller space and discuss further development by exploring those links.

#### Harry Hyungryul BAIK 白亨烈 (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), 2022-09-27, Normal generation vs small translation length

I will talk about mapping class group action on the curve complex with the following  conjecture in mind: an element with small stable translation length is a normal generator. This conjecture is motivated by a similar statement in the case of the action on the Teichmüller space proved by Lanier-Margalit. I will discuss various partial results (based on joint works with various subsets of $$\{$$Dongryul Kim, Hyunshik Shin, Philippe Tranchida, Chenxi Wu$$\}$$).

#### Xin NIE 聂鑫 (Southeast University 东南大学), 2022-09-19, Cyclic Higgs bundles and minimal surfaces in pseudo-hyperbolic spaces

Spacelike minimal surfaces in the pseudo-hyperbolic (2+q)-spacetime are actually maximal and are related to $$\mathrm{SO}$$(2,q+1)-representations of surface groups through the works of Bonsante-Schlenker and Collier-Tholozan-Toulisse. We investigate a type of minimal surface associated to $$\mathrm{SO}$$(n,n+1)-representations. They occur in pseudo-hyperbolic spacetimes with higher space dimensions, and hence are not maximal; but they are still infinitesimally rigid, hence can be used to prove Labourie's conjecture in rank $$2$$.

#### Nicolas THOLOZAN (École Normale Supérieure), 2022-09-05, Compact quotients of homogeneous spaces

Let $$G$$ be a Lie group acting transitively on a manifold $$X$$. A compact quotient of $$X$$ (also called compact Clifford--Klein form) is simply a quotient of $$X$$ by a discrete subgroup of $$G$$ acting properly discontinuously and cocompactly. In this talk, we will address the following questions:

• Does $$X$$ admit compact quotients?
• If so, what is their topology?
• If so, do these compact quotients have deformations?

These questions are rooted in the mathematics of the late XIXth century: Klein's Erlangen program, the uniformization of (closed) Riemann surfaces, Poincaré's Analysis Situs...

### Miscellaneous

If there are any issues, please feel free to contact any of the organizers.