The pants graph of a compact orientable surface S, introduced by Hatcher and Thurston, is a simplicial graph whose vertices are maximal essential multicurves on S and whose edges correspond to certain local moves on multicurves. The importance of the pants graph comes from a theorem of Brock showing that the pants graph is a good combinatorial model for the Teichmuller space with the Wiel-Petersson metric, which is the space of hyperbolic metrics on S up to isotopy. In joint work with Marc Lackenby, we give upper bounds for distance in the pants graph and derive applications for distance in the Teichmuller space and also for volumes of hyperbolic 3-manifolds. I will give an overview of these results, no prior familiarity with the Teichmuller is needed for the talk.

Online via Zoom:
Meeting ID: 908 611 6889
Passcode: 362880