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Primitive Curve Lengths on Pairs of Pants

2015/06/11 by Jane Gilman, Gilman, Jane
Computer Science · Engineering · Mathematics · #20F10 #20H10 #30F40 #37F30 #57M60 #Advanced Numerical Analysis Techniques #Computational Geometry and Mesh Generation #Digital Image Processing Techniques #FOS: Mathematics #Group Theory (math.GR) #math.GR #msc:20F10 #msc:20H10 #msc:30F40 #msc:37F30 #msc:57M60

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1506.03633

openalex publication_date 2015/06/11 · arxiv created 2016/07/07 · arxiv updated 2016/07/11 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

The problem of determining whether or not a non-elementary subgroup of PSL(2,\CC) is discrete is a long standing one. The importance of two generator subgroups comes from Jørgensen's inequality which has as a corollary the fact that a non-elementary subgroup of PSL(2,\CC) is discrete if and only if every non-elementary two generator subgroup is. A solution even in the two-generator PSL(2,\RR) case appears to require an algorithm that relies on a the concept of \sl trace minimizing that was initiated by Rosenberger and Purzitsky in the 1970's Their work has lead to many discreteness results and algorithms. Here we show how their concept of trace minimizing leads to a theorem that gives bounds on the hyperbolic lengths of curves on the quotient surface that are the images of primitive generators in the case where the group is discrete and the quotient is a pair of pants. The result follows as a consequence of the Non-Euclidean Euclidean algorithm.

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