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The Distribution of Gaps for Saddle Connection Directions

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Abstract

Motivated by the study of billiards in polygons, we prove fine results for the distribution of gaps of directions of saddle connections on translation surfaces. As an application we prove that for almost every holomorphic differential ω on a Riemann surface of genus g ≥ 2 the smallest gap between saddle connection directions of length at most a fixed length decays faster than quadratically in the length. We also characterize the exceptional set: the decay rate is not faster than quadratic if and only if ω is a lattice surface.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 1409 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL, 61801, USA

    J. S. Athreya

  2. Department of Mathematics, University of Chicago, 5734 S. University Avenue, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA

    J. Chaika

Authors
  1. J. S. Athreya
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  2. J. Chaika
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Correspondence to J. S. Athreya.

Additional information

J. S. Athreya was partially supported by NSF grant DMS 1069153. J. Chaika was partially supported by NSF grant DMS 1004372.

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Athreya, J.S., Chaika, J. The Distribution of Gaps for Saddle Connection Directions. Geom. Funct. Anal. 22, 1491–1516 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00039-012-0164-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00039-012-0164-9

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