English

Roots, symmetries and conjugacy of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes

Dynamical Systems 2007-10-11 v1 Geometric Topology

Abstract

An algorithm is proposed that solves two decision problems for pseudo-Anosov elements in the mapping class group of a surface with at least one marked fixed point. The first problem is the root problem: decide if the element is a power and in this case compute the roots. The second problem is the symmetry problem: decide if the element commutes with a finite order element and in this case compute this element. The structure theorem on which this algorithm is based provides also a new solution to the conjugacy problem.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0710.2043,
  title  = {Roots, symmetries and conjugacy of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes},
  author = {Jérôme Fehrenbach and Jérôme Los},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0710.2043},
  year   = {2007}
}