Related papers: A remark on the word length in surface groups

We consider the relations between different measures of complexity for free homotopy classes of curves on a surface $\Sigma$, including the minimum number of self-intersections, the minimum length of the words representing them in a…

A subset of a group is characteristic if it is invariant under every automorphism of the group. We study word length in fundamental groups of closed hyperbolic surfaces with respect to characteristic generating sets consisting of a finite…

Each free homotopy class of directed closed curves on a surface with boundary can be described by a cyclic reduced word in the generators of the fundamental group and their inverses. The word length is the number of letters of the cyclic…

Let $\gamma_0$ be a curve on a surface $\Sigma$ of genus $g$ and with $r$ boundary components and let $\pi_1(\Sigma)\curvearrowright X$ be a discrete and cocompact action on some metric space. We study the asymptotic behavior of the number…

In this paper, we primarily investigate the following symmetric presentation of the surface group $\pi_1(\Sigma_g)=\left\langle c_1,\dots, c_{2g}\mid c_1\cdots c_{2g}c_1^{-1}\cdots c_{2g}^{-1}\right\rangle$. For every nontrivial element…

We study mapping class group orbits of homotopy and isotopy classes of curves with self-intersections. We exhibit the asymptotics of the number of such orbits of curves with a bounded number of self-intersections, as the complexity of the…

Let $\Sigma$ be a compact, orientable surface of negative Euler characteristic, and let $h$ be a complete hyperbolic metric on $\Sigma$. A geodesic curve $\gamma$ in $\Sigma$ is filling, if it cuts the surface into topological disks and…

Two free homotopy classes of closed curves in an orientable surface with negative Euler characteristic are said to be length equivalent if for any hyperbolic structure on the surface, the length of the geodesic in one class is equal to the…

In an orientable surface with boundary, free homotopy classes of curves on surfaces are in one to one correspondence with cyclic reduced words in a set of standard generators of the fundamental group. The combinatorial length of a class is…

We consider the fundamental group $\pi$ of a surface of finite type equipped with the infinite generating set consisting of all simple closed curves. We show that every nilpotent quotient of $\pi$ has finite diameter with respect to the…

Given any generating set of any pseudo-Anosov-containing subgroup of the mapping class group of a surface, we construct a pseudo-Anosov with word length bounded by a constant depending only on the surface. More generally, in any subgroup G…

We classify closed curves on a once-punctured torus with a single self-intersection from a combinatorial perspective. We determine the number of closed curves with given word-length and with zero, one, and arbitrary self-intersections.

Given a finite group with a generating subset there is a well-established notion of length for a group element given in terms of its minimal length expression as a product of elements from the generating set. Recently, certain quantities…

The mapping class group of a surface $\S$ acts on the set of closed geodesics on $\S$. This action preserves self-intersection number. In this paper, we count the orbits of curves with at most $K$ self-intersections, for each $K \geq 1$.…

A longstanding question of Gromov asks whether every one-ended word-hyperbolic group contains a subgroup isomorphic to the fundamental group of a closed hyperbolic surface. An infinite family of word-hyperbolic groups can be obtained by…

Let $\Sigma$ be a hyperbolic surface. We study the set of curves on $\Sigma$ of a given type, i.e. in the mapping class group orbit of some fixed but otherwise arbitrary $\gamma_0$. For example, in the particular case that $\Sigma$ is a…

In this note, we develop a condition on a closed curve on a surface or in a 3-manifold that implies that the curve has the property that its length function on the space of all hyperbolic structures on the surface or 3-manifold completely…

Let $S_{g,n}$ be a surface of genus $g $ with $n$ marked points. Let $X$ be a complete hyperbolic metric on $S_{g,n}$ with $n$ cusps. Every isotopy class $[\gamma]$ of a closed curve $\gamma \in \pi_{1}(S_{g,n})$ contains a unique closed…

Oriented closed curves on an orientable surface with boundary are described up to continuous deformation by reduced cyclic words in the generators of the fundamental group and their inverses. By self-intersection number one means the…

We give the asymptotic growth of the number of (multi-)arcs of bounded length between boundary components on complete finite-area hyperbolic surfaces with boundary. Specifically, if $S$ has genus $g$, $n$ boundary components and $p$…