English

Index realization for automorphisms of free groups

Group Theory 2017-03-20 v3

Abstract

For any surface Σ\Sigma of genus g1g \geq 1 and (essentially) any collection of positive integers i1,i2,,ii_1, i_2, \ldots, i_\ell with i1++i=4g4i_1+\cdots +i_\ell = 4g-4 Masur and Smillie have shown that there exists a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism h:ΣΣh:\Sigma \to \Sigma with precisely \ell singularities S1,,SS_1, \ldots, S_\ell in its stable foliation L\cal L, such that L\cal L has precisely ik+2i_k+2 separatrices raying out from each SkS_k. In this paper we prove the analogue of this result for automorphisms of a free group FNF_N, where "pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism" is replaced by "fully irreducible automorphism" and the Gauss-Bonnet equality i1++i=4g4i_1+\cdots +i_\ell = 4g-4 is replaced by the index inequality i1++i2N2i_1+\cdots +i_\ell \leq 2N-2 from Gaboriau, Jaeger, Levitt and Lustig.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1506.04536,
  title  = {Index realization for automorphisms of free groups},
  author = {Thierry Coulbois and Martin Lustig},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1506.04536},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

19 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, revised version for publication

R2 v1 2026-06-22T09:53:37.847Z