Immersed surfaces in the modular orbifold
arXiv:1003.1532 · doi:10.1090/S0002-9939-2011-10911-0
Abstract
A hyperbolic conjugacy class in the modular group PSL(2,Z) corresponds to a closed geodesic in the modular orbifold. Some of these geodesics virtually bound immersed surfaces, and some do not; the distinction is related to the polyhedral structure in the unit ball of the stable commutator length norm. We prove the following stability theorem: for every hyperbolic element of the modular group, the product of this element with a sufficiently large power of a parabolic element is represented by a geodesic that virtually bounds an immersed surface.
13 pages, 8 figures; version 2 contains minor corrections