Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 April 2009
We exhibit a canonical geometric pairing of the simple closed curves of the degree three cover of the modular surface, Γ3\ℋ, with the proper single self-intersecting geodesics of Crisp and Moran. This leads to a pairing of fundamental domains for Γ3 with Markoff triples.
The routes of the simple closed geodesics are directly related to the above. We give two parametrizations of these. Combining with work of Cohn, we achieve a listing of all simple closed geodesics of length within any bounded interval. Our method is direct, avoiding the determination of geodesic lengths below the chosen lower bound.