English

Combinatorial Structure of Inert and Ambiguous Classes in Modular Group

Geometric Topology 2026-02-24 v1

Abstract

We study inert, and ambiguous conjugacy classes in the modular group PSL(2,Z)\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb{Z}) from a purely combinatorial perspective. Using word length in the free product representation Z2Z3\mathbb{Z}_2 * \mathbb{Z}_3 of the modular group, we obtain exact counting formulas and asymptotic growth rates for inert and ambiguous classes. Our results provide the first counting formulas for inert classes obtained independently of Sarnak's analytic trace-based methods, while also establishing a combinatorial framework for ambiguous classes.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.19176,
  title  = {Combinatorial Structure of Inert and Ambiguous Classes in Modular Group},
  author = {Debattam Das and Krishnendu Gongopadhyay and Khushi Mishra},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.19176},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

24 pages

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:46:16.207Z