We investigate the translation lengths of group elements that arise in random walks on the isometry groups of Gromov hyperbolic spaces. In particular, without any moment condition, we prove that non-elementary random walks exhibit at least linear growth of translation lengths. As a corollary, almost every random walk on mapping class groups eventually becomes pseudo-Anosov, and almost every random walk on $\mathrm {Out}(F_n)$ eventually becomes fully irreducible. If the underlying measure further has finite first moment, then the growth rate of translation lengths is equal to the drift, the escape rate of the random walk.

We then apply our technique to investigate the random walks induced by the action of mapping class groups on Teichmüller spaces. In particular, we prove the spectral theorem under finite first moment condition, generalizing a result of Dahmani and Horbez.

Given a closed, orientable, compact surface S of constant negative curvature and genus $g \geq 2$ , we study the measure-theoretic entropy of the Bowen–Series boundary map with respect to its smooth invariant measure. We obtain an explicit formula for the entropy that only depends on the perimeter of the $(8g-4)$ -sided fundamental polygon of the surface S and its genus. Using this, we analyze how the entropy changes in the Teichmüller space of S and prove the following flexibility result: the measure-theoretic entropy takes all values between 0 and a maximum that is achieved on the surface that admits a regular $(8g-4)$ -sided fundamental polygon. We also compare the measure-theoretic entropy to the topological entropy of these maps and show that the smooth invariant measure is not a measure of maximal entropy.

In this paper it is shown that there are infinitely many extremal Beltrami differentials of non-landside type and non-constant modulus in a Teichmüller equivalence class if the class contains a landslide extremal. The result answers, affirmatively in a stronger sense, a problem posed by Li.

Zhou et al. [‘On weakly non-decreasable quasiconformal mappings’, J. Math. Anal. Appl.386 (2012), 842–847] proved that, in a Teichmüller equivalence class, there exists an extremal quasiconformal mapping with a weakly nondecreasable dilatation. They asked whether a weakly nondecreasable dilatation is a nondecreasable dilatation. The aim of this paper is to give a negative answer to their problem. We also construct a Teichmüller class such that it contains an infinite number of weakly nondecreasable extremal representatives, only one of which is nondecreasable.

Thurston introduced shear deformations (cataclysms) on geodesic laminations–deformations including left and right displacements along geodesics. For hyperbolic surfaces with cusps, we consider shear deformations on disjoint unions of ideal geodesics. The length of a balanced weighted sum of ideal geodesics is defined and the Weil–Petersson (WP) duality of shears and the defined length is established. The Poisson bracket of a pair of balanced weight systems on a set of disjoint ideal geodesics is given in terms of an elementary $2$-form. The symplectic geometry of balanced weight systems on ideal geodesics is developed. Equality of the Fock shear coordinate algebra and the WP Poisson algebra is established. The formula for the WP Riemannian pairing of shears is also presented.

Let $T(S)$ be the Teichmüller space of a hyperbolic Riemann surface $S$. Suppose that $\mu $ is an extremal Beltrami differential at a given point $\tau $ of $T(S)$ and $\{ {\phi }_{n} \} $ is a Hamilton sequence for $\mu $. It is an open problem whether the sequence $\{ {\phi }_{n} \} $ is always a Hamilton sequence for all extremal differentials in $\tau $. S. Wu [‘Hamilton sequences for extremal quasiconformal mappings of the unit disk’, Sci. China Ser. A 42 (1999), 1033–1042] gave a positive answer to this problem in the case where $S$ is the unit disc. In this paper, we show that it is also true when $S$ is a doubly-connected domain.

The Teichmüller space of a finite-type surface is considered. It is shown that Teichmüller distance is not $C^{2 + \epsilon }$ for any $\epsilon > 0$. Furthermore, Teichmüller distance is not $C^{2 + g}$ for any gauge function $g$ with $\liminf_{u \to 0} g(u)\log (1 / u)=0$.