English

Connected components of representation spaces of non-orientable surfaces

Geometric Topology 2009-09-15 v1

Abstract

Let M be a compact closed non-orientable surface. We show that the space of representations of the fundamental group of M into PSL(2,R) has exactly two connected components. These two components are the preimages of a certain Stiefel-Whitney characteristic class, computed in a similar way as the Euler class in the orientable case.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0909.2421,
  title  = {Connected components of representation spaces of non-orientable surfaces},
  author = {Frederic Palesi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0909.2421},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

18 pages, 1 figure