English

On stable commutator length of non-filling curves in surfaces

Geometric Topology 2025-06-11 v2 Group Theory

Abstract

We give a new proof of rationality of stable commutator length (scl) of certain elements in surface groups: those represented by curves that do not fill the surface. Such elements always admit extremal surfaces for scl. These results also hold more generally for non-filling 1-chains.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.14086,
  title  = {On stable commutator length of non-filling curves in surfaces},
  author = {Max Forester and Justin Malestein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.14086},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

17 pages; three figures have been added, along with some minor edits