Teichmüller space
In mathematics, the Teichmüller space of a topological surface is a space that parametrizes complex structures on up to the action of homeomorphisms that are isotopic to the identity homeomorphism. Teichmüller spaces are named after Oswald Teichmüller.
Each point in a Teichmüller space may be regarded as an isomorphism class of "marked" Riemann surfaces, where a "marking" is an isotopy class of homeomorphisms from to itself. It can be viewed as a moduli space for marked hyperbolic structure on the surface, and this endows it with a natural topology for which it is homeomorphic to a ball of dimension for a surface of genus. In this way Teichmüller space can be viewed as the universal covering orbifold of the Riemann moduli space.
The Teichmüller space has a canonical complex manifold structure and a wealth of natural metrics. The study of geometric features of these various structures is an active body of research.
The sub-field of mathematics that studies the Teichmüller space is called Teichmüller theory.
History
s for Riemann surfaces and related Fuchsian groups have been studied since the work of Bernhard Riemann, who knew that parameters were needed to describe the variations of complex structures on a surface of genus. The early study of Teichmüller space, in the late nineteenth–early twentieth century, was geometric and founded on the interpretation of Riemann surfaces as hyperbolic surfaces. Among the main contributors were Felix Klein, Henri Poincaré, Paul Koebe, Jakob Nielsen, Robert Fricke and Werner Fenchel.The main contribution of Teichmüller to the study of moduli was the introduction of quasiconformal mappings to the subject. They allow us to give much more depth to the study of moduli spaces by endowing them with additional features that were not present in the previous, more elementary works. After World War II the subject was developed further in this analytic vein, in particular by Lars Ahlfors and Lipman Bers. The theory continues to be active, with numerous studies of the complex structure of Teichmüller space.
The geometric vein in the study of Teichmüller space was revived following the work of William Thurston in the late 1970s, who introduced a geometric compactification which he used in his study of the mapping class group of a surface. Other more combinatorial objects associated to this group have also been related to Teichmüller space, and this is a very active subject of research in geometric group theory.
Definitions
Teichmüller space from complex structures
Let be an orientable smooth surface. Informally the Teichmüller space of is the space of Riemann surface structures on up to isotopy.Formally it can be defined as follows. Two complex structures on are said to be equivalent if there is a diffeomorphism such that:
- It is holomorphic ;
- it is isotopic to the identity of .
Another equivalent definition is as follows: is the space of pairs where is a Riemann surface and a diffeomorphism, and two pairs are regarded as equivalent if is isotopic to a holomorphic diffeomorphism. Such a pair is called a marked Riemann surface; the marking being the diffeomorphism; another definition of markings is by systems of curves.
There are two simple examples that are immediately computed from the Uniformization theorem: there is a unique complex structure on the sphere and there are two on and in each case the group of positive diffeomorphisms is connected. Thus the Teichmüller space of is a single point and that of contains exactly two points.
A slightly more involved example is the open annulus, for which the Teichmüller space is the interval .
The Teichmüller space of the torus and flat metrics
The next example is the torus In this case any complex structure can be realised by a Riemann surface of the form for a complex number whereis the complex upper half-plane. Then we have a bijection:
and thus the Teichmüller space of is
If we identify with the Euclidean plane then each point in Teichmüller space can also be viewed as a marked flat structure on Thus the Teichmüller space is in bijection with the set of pairs where is a flat surface and is a diffeomorphism up to isotopy on.
Finite type surfaces
These are the surfaces for which Teichmüller space is most often studied, which include closed surfaces. A surface is of finite type if it is diffeomorphic to a compact surface minus a finite set. If is a closed surface of genus then the surface obtained by removing points from is usually denoted and its Teichmüller space byTeichmüller spaces and hyperbolic metrics
Every finite type orientable surface other than the ones above admits complete Riemannian metrics of constant curvature. For a given surface of finite type there is a bijection between such metrics and complex structures as follows from the uniformisation theorem. Thus if the Teichmüller space can be realised as the set of marked hyperbolic surfaces of genus with cusps, that is the set of pairs where is a hyperbolic surface and is a diffeomorphism, modulo the equivalence relation where and are identified if is isotopic to an isometry.The topology on Teichmüller space
In all cases computed above there is an obvious topology on Teichmüller space. In the general case there are many natural ways to topologise, perhaps the simplest is via hyperbolic metrics and length functions.If is a closed curve on and a marked hyperbolic surface then is homotopic to a unique closed geodesic on . The value at of the length function associated to is then:
Let be the set of simple closed curves on. Then the map
is an embedding. The space has the product topology and is endowed with the induced topology. With this topology is homeomorphic to
In fact one can obtain an embedding with curves, and even. In both cases one can use the embedding to give a geometric proof of the homeomorphism above.
More examples of small Teichmüller spaces
There is a unique complete hyperbolic metric of finite volume on the three-holed sphere and so the Teichmüller space of finite-volume complete metrics of constant curvature is a point.The Teichmüller spaces and are naturally realised as the upper half-plane, as can be seen using Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates.
Teichmüller space and conformal structures
Instead of complex structures or hyperbolic metrics one can define Teichmüller space using conformal structures. Indeed, conformal structures are the same as complex structures in two dimensions. Moreover, the Uniformisation Theorem also implies that in each conformal class of Riemannian metrics on a surface there is a unique metric of constant curvature.Teichmüller spaces as representation spaces
Yet another interpretation of Teichmüller space is as a representation space for surface groups. If is hyperbolic, of finite type and is the fundamental group of then Teichmüller space is in natural bijection with:- The set of injective representations with discrete image, up to conjugation by an element of, if is compact ;
- In general, the set of such representations, with the added condition that those elements of which are represented by curves freely homotopic to a puncture are sent to parabolic elements of, again up to conjugation by an element of.
Note that this realises as a closed subset of which endows it with a topology. This can be used to see the homeomorphism directly.
This interpretation of Teichmüller space is generalised by higher Teichmüller theory, where the group is replaced by an arbitrary semisimple Lie group.
A remark on categories
All definitions above can be made in the topological category instead of the category of differentiable manifolds, and this does not change the objects.Infinite-dimensional Teichmüller spaces
Surfaces which are not of finite type also admit hyperbolic structures, which can be parametrised by infinite-dimensional spaces. Another example of infinite-dimensional space related to Teichmüller theory is the Teichmüller space of a lamination by surfaces.Action of the mapping class group and relation to moduli space
The map to moduli space
There is a map from Teichmüller space to the moduli space of Riemann surfaces diffeomorphic to, defined by. It is a covering map, and since is simply connected it is the orbifold universal cover for the moduli space.Action of the mapping class group
The mapping class group of is the coset group of the diffeomorphism group of by the normal subgroup of those that are isotopic to the identity. The group of diffeomorphisms acts naturally on Teichmüller space byIf is a mapping class and two diffeomorphisms representing it then they are isotopic. Thus the classes of and are the same in Teichmüller space, and the action above factorises through the mapping class group.
The action of the mapping class group on the Teichmüller space is properly discontinuous, and the quotient is the moduli space.
Fixed points
The Nielsen realisation problem asks whether any finite subgroup of the mapping class group has a global fixed point in Teichmüller space. In more classical terms the question is: can every finite subgroup of be realised as a group of isometries of some complete hyperbolic metric on . This was solved by Steven Kerckhoff.Coordinates
Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates
The Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates on the Teichmüller space are associated to a pants decomposition of the surface. This is a decomposition of into pairs of pants, and to each curve in the decomposition is associated its length in the hyperbolic metric corresponding to the point in Teichmüller space, and another real parameter called the twist which is more involved to define.In case of a closed surface of genus there are curves in a pants decomposition and we get parameters, which is the dimension of. The Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates in fact define a homeomorphism.
In the case of a surface with punctures some pairs of pants are "degenerate" and give only two length and twist parameters. Again in this case the Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates define a homeomorphism.