Topological Entropy of Pseudo-Anosov Maps from a Typical Thurston’s Construction

In this paper, we develop a way to extract information about a random walk associated with a typical Thurston’s construction. We first observe that a typical Thurston’s construction entails a free group of rank 2. We also present a proof of the spectral theorem for random walks associated with Thurston’s construction that have finite 2nd moment with respect to the Teichmüller metric. Its general case was remarked by Dahmani and Horbez. Finally, under a hypothesis not involving moment conditions, we prove that random walks eventually become pseudo-Anosov. As an application, we first discuss a random analogy of Kojima and McShane’s estimation of the hyperbolic volume of a mapping torus with pseudo-Anosov monodromy. As another application, we discuss non-probabilistic estimations of stretch factors from Thurston’s construction and the powers for Salem numbers to become the stretch factors of pseudo-Anosovs from Thurston’s construction.

Statistical Hyperbolicity for Harmonic Measure

We consider harmonic measures that arise from random walks on the mapping class group determined by probability distributions that have finite first moments with respect to the Teichmüller metric and whose supports generate nonelementary subgroups. We prove that Teichmüller space with the Teichmüller metric is statistically hyperbolic for such a harmonic measure.

Teichmuller Geometry

This chapter focuses on the metric geometry of Teichmüller space. It first explains how one can think of Teich(Sɡ) as the space of complex structures on Sɡ. To this end, the chapter defines quasiconformal maps between surfaces and presents a solution to the resulting Teichmüller's extremal problem. It also considers the correspondence between complex structures and hyperbolic structures, along with the Teichmüller mapping, Teichmüller metric, and the proof of Teichmüller's uniqueness and existence theorems. The fundamental connection between Teichmüller's theorems, holomorphic quadratic differentials, and measured foliations is discussed as well. Finally, the chapter describes the Grötzsch's problem, whose solution is tied to the proof of Teichmüller's uniqueness theorem.