The local invariants of a meromorphic quadratic differential on a compact Riemann surface are the orders of zeros and poles, and the residues at the poles of even orders. The main result of this paper is that with few exceptions, every pattern of local invariants can be obtained by a quadratic differential on some Riemann surface. The exceptions are completely classified and only occur in genera zero and one. Moreover, in the case of a nonconnected stratum, we show that, with three exceptions in genus one, each configuration of invariants can be realized in each non-hyperelliptic connected component of the stratum. In the hyperelliptic components with two poles the residues at both poles coincide. These results are obtained using the flat metric induced by the differentials. We give an application by bounding the number of disjoint cylinders on a primitive quadratic differential.

Let ${{\mathcal {H}}}$ be a stratum of translation surfaces with at least two singularities, let $m_{{{\mathcal {H}}}}$ denote the Masur-Veech measure on ${{\mathcal {H}}}$, and let $Z_0$ be a flow on $({{\mathcal {H}}}, m_{{{\mathcal {H}}}})$ obtained by integrating a Rel vector field. We prove that $Z_0$ is mixing of all orders, and in particular is ergodic. We also characterize the ergodicity of flows defined by Rel vector fields, for more general spaces $({\mathcal L}, m_{{\mathcal L}})$, where ${\mathcal L} \subset {{\mathcal {H}}}$ is an orbit-closure for the action of $G = \operatorname {SL}_2({\mathbb {R}})$ (i.e., an affine invariant subvariety) and $m_{{\mathcal L}}$ is the natural measure. These results are conditional on a forthcoming measure classification result of Brown, Eskin, Filip and Rodriguez-Hertz. We also prove that the entropy of $Z_0$ with respect to any of the measures $m_{{{\mathcal L}}}$ is zero.

Singular directions in a Veech surface are shown to be exactly the directions of its saddle connections.

This paper is part of a program to understand the parameter spaces of dynamical systems generated by meromorphic functions with finitely many singular values. We give a full description of the parameter space for a specific family based on the exponential function that has precisely two finite asymptotic values and one attracting fixed point. It represents a step beyond the previous work by Goldberg and Keen [The mapping class group of a generic quadratic rational map and automorphisms of the 2-shift. Invent. Math. 101(2) (1990), 335–372] on degree two rational functions with analogous constraints: two critical values and an attracting fixed point. What is interesting and promising for pushing the general program even further is that, despite the presence of the essential singularity, our new functions exhibit a dynamic structure as similar as one could hope to the rational case, and that the philosophy of the techniques used in the rational case could be adapted.

We associate a flow $\phi $ with a solution of the vortex equations on a closed oriented Riemannian 2-manifold $(M,g)$ of negative Euler characteristic and investigate its properties. We show that $\phi $ always admits a dominated splitting and identify special cases in which $\phi $ is Anosov. In particular, starting from holomorphic differentials of fractional degree, we produce novel examples of Anosov flows on suitable roots of the unit tangent bundle of $(M,g)$ .

A meander is a topological configuration of a line and a simple closed curve in the plane (or a pair of simple closed curves on the 2-sphere) intersecting transversally. Meanders can be traced back to H. Poincaré and naturally appear in various areas of mathematics, theoretical physics and computational biology (in particular, they provide a model of polymer folding). Enumeration of meanders is an important open problem. The number of meanders with $2N$ crossings grows exponentially when $N$ grows, but the long-standing problem on the precise asymptotics is still out of reach.

We show that the situation becomes more tractable if one additionally fixes the topological type (or the total number of minimal arcs) of a meander. Then we are able to derive simple asymptotic formulas for the numbers of meanders as $N$ tends to infinity. We also compute the asymptotic probability of getting a simple closed curve on a sphere by identifying the endpoints of two arc systems (one on each of the two hemispheres) along the common equator.

The new tools we bring to bear are based on interpretation of meanders as square-tiled surfaces with one horizontal and one vertical cylinder. The proofs combine recent results on Masur–Veech volumes of moduli spaces of meromorphic quadratic differentials in genus zero with our new observation that horizontal and vertical separatrix diagrams of integer quadratic differentials are asymptotically uncorrelated. The additional combinatorial constraints we impose in this article yield explicit polynomial asymptotics.

Using Roelcke’s formula for the Green function, we explicitly construct a basis in the kernel of the adjoint Laplacian on a compact polyhedral surface $X$ and compute the $S$-matrix of $X$ at the zero value of the spectral parameter. We apply these results to study various self-adjoint extensions of a symmetric Laplacian on a compact polyhedral surface of genus two with a single conical point. It turns out that the behaviour of the $S$-matrix at the zero value of the spectral parameter is sensitive to the geometry of the polyhedron.

Given a faithful action of a finite group $G$ on an algebraic curve $X$ of genus $gx\,\ge \,2$, we give explicit criteria for the induced action of $G$ on the Riemann–Roch space ${{H}^{0}}\left( X,\,{{\mathcal{O}}_{X}}\left( D \right) \right)$ to be faithful, where $D$ is a $G$-invariant divisor on $X$ of degree at least ${{2}_{gX}}\,-\,2$. This leads to a concise answer to the question of when the action of $G$ on the space ${{H}^{0}}\left( X,\,\Omega _{X}^{\otimes m} \right)$ of global holomorphic polydifferentials of order $m$ is faithful. If $X$ is hyperelliptic, we provide an explicit basis of ${{H}^{0}}\left( X,\,\Omega _{X}^{\otimes m} \right)$. Finally, we give applications in deformation theory and in coding theory and discuss the analogous problem for the action of $G$ on the first homology ${{H}_{1}}\left( X,\,\mathbb{Z}/m\mathbb{Z} \right)$ if $X$ is a Riemann surface.

Let $S$ be a compact Riemann surface of genus ${\rm g}\,{>}\,1$. By using Teichmüller theory, a new approach is obtained to the existence of a Jenkins–Strebel differential with prescribed type and heights on $S$. Moreover, the geometric structures of horizontal trajectories of certain classes of quadratic differentials are discussed.

We study ${{\mathbb{Z}}_{p}}$ actions on compact connected Riemann surfaces via their associated Eichler traces.We determine the set of possible Eichler traces and determine the relationship between 2 actions if they have the same trace.