Length of Filling Pairs on Punctured Surface

Abstract

A pair $(\alpha ,\beta )$ of simple closed curves on a surface $S_{g,n}$ of genus $g$ and with $n$ punctures is called a filling pair if the complement of the union of the curves is a disjoint union of topological disks and once punctured disks. In this article, we study the length of filling pairs on once-punctured hyperbolic surfaces. In particular, we find a lower bound of the length of filling pairs which depends only on the topology of the surface.

17 pages, Final Version, To appear in Algebraic and Geometric Topology