Counting in a mapping class group orbit of triangulations
Submitting author: Tarik Aougab, Haverford College
Abstract
We introduce the notion of a geodesic current with corners, a generalization of a geodesic current in which there are singularities (the ``corners'') at which invariance under the geodesic flow can be violated. Recall that the set of closed geodesics is, in the appropriate sense, dense in the space of geodesic currents; the motivation behind currents with corners is to construct a space in which graphs on S play the role of closed curves. Another fruitful perspective is that geodesic currents reside "at infinity'' in the space of currents with corners, in the sense that their (non-existent) corners have been pushed out to infinity. As an application, we count triangulations in a mapping class group orbit with respect to length, and we obtain asymptotics that parallel results of Mirzakhani, Erlandsson-Souto, and Rafi-Souto for curves. This represents joint work with Jayadev Athreya.