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We determine the asymptotic growth rate of the diameter of the random hyperbolic surfaces constructed by Brooks and Makover. This model consists of a uniform gluing of $2n$ hyperbolic ideal triangles along their sides followed by a compactification to get a random hyperbolic surface of genus roughly $n/2$. We show that the diameter of those random surfaces is asymptotic to $2 \log n$ in probability as $n \to \infty$., Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures

We prove that the minimal diameter of a hyperbolic compact orientable surface of genus $g$ is asymptotic to $\log g$ as $g \to \infty$. The proof relies on a random construction, which we analyse using lattice point counting theory and the exploration of random trivalent graphs., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Every closed orientable surface S has the following property: any two connected covers of S of the same degree are homeomorphic (as spaces). In this, paper we give a complete classification of compact 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary which have the above property. We also discuss related group-theoretic questions., Comment: 29 pages. V3: Implements suggestions from a referee report. This version has been accepted for publication by IUMJ

The systole of a hyperbolic surface is bounded by a logarithmic function of its genus. This bound is sharp, in that there exist sequences of surfaces with genera tending to infinity that attain logarithmically large systoles. These are constructed by taking congruence covers of arithmetic surfaces. In this article we provide a new construction for a sequence of surfaces with systoles that grow logarithmically in their genera. We do this by combining a construction for graphs of large girth and a count of the number of $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$ matrices with positive entries and bounded trace., 14 pages, 2 figures

Multivariate Poisson approximation of the length spectrum of random surfaces is studied by means of the Chen-Stein method. This approach delivers simple and explicit error bounds in Poisson limit theorems. They are used to prove that Poisson approximation applies to curves of length up to order $o(\log\log g)$ with $g$ being the genus of the surface., 22 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Indiana Univ. Math. J

We present a construction of sequences of closed hyperbolic surfaces that have long systoles which form pants decompositions of these surfaces. The length of the systoles of these surfaces grows logarithmically as a function of their genus., 13 pages, 5 figures

The main goal of this article is to understand how the length spectrum of a random surface depends on its genus. Here a random surface means a surface obtained by randomly gluing together an even number of triangles carrying a fixed metric. Given suitable restrictions on the genus of the surface, we consider the number of appearances of fixed finite sets of combinatorial types of curves. Of any such set we determine the asymptotics of the probability distribution. It turns out that these distributions are independent of the genus in an appropriate sense. As an application of our results we study the probability distribution of the systole of random surfaces in a hyperbolic and a more general Riemannian setting. In the hyperbolic setting we are able to determine the limit of the probability distribution for the number of triangles tending to infinity and in the Riemannian setting we derive bounds., 30 pages, 6 figures

We show that a random 3-manifold with positive first Betti number admits a tower of cyclic covers with exponential torsion growth., Comment: 32 pages, no figures

We study the systole of a random surface, where by a random surface we mean a surface constructed by randomly gluing together an even number of triangles. We study two types of metrics on these surfaces, the first one coming from using ideal hyperbolic triangles and the second one using triangles that carry a given Riemannian metric. In the hyperbolic case we compute the limit of the expected value of the systole when the number of triangles goes to infinity (approximately 2.484). We also determine the asymptotic probability distribution of the number of curves of any finite length. This turns out to be a Poisson distribution. In the Riemannian case we give an upper bound to the limit supremum and a lower bound to the limit infimum of the expected value of the systole depending only on the metric on the triangle. We also show that this upper bound is sharp in the sense that there is a sequence of metrics for which the limit infimum comes arbitrarily close to the upper bound. The main tool we use is random regular graphs. One of the difficulties in the proof of the limits is controlling the probability that short closed curves are separating. To do this we first prove that the probability that a random cubic graph has a short separating circuit tends to 0 for the number of vertices going to infinity and show that this holds for circuits of a length up to $\log_2$ of the number of vertices.

Starting from an arbitrary sequence of polygons whose total perimeter is $2n$, we can build an (oriented) surface by pairing their sides in a uniform fashion. Chmutov and Pittel (arXiv:1503.01816) have shown that, regardless of the configuration of polygons we started with, the degree sequence of the graph obtained this way is remarkably constant in total variation distance and converges towards a Poisson--Dirichlet partition as $n \to \infty$. We actually show that several other geometric properties of the graph are universal. En route we provide an alternative proof of a weak version of the result of Chmutov and Pittel using probabilistic techniques and related to the circle of ideas around the peeling process of random planar maps. At this occasion we also fill a gap in the existing literature by surveying the properties of a uniform random map with $n$ edges. In particular we show that the diameter of a random map with $n$ edges converges in law towards a random variable taking only values in $\{2,3\}$., 30 pages, 8 figures

We prove a sharp upper bound on the number of shortest cycles contained inside any connected graph in terms of its number of vertices, girth, and maximal degree. Equality holds only for Moore graphs, which gives a new characterization of these graphs. In the case of regular graphs, our result improves an inequality of Teo and Koh. We also show that a subsequence of the Ramanujan graphs of Lubotzky-Phillips-Sarnak have super-linear kissing numbers., Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure

We determine the factorial growth rate of the number of finite index subgroups of right-angled Artin groups as a function of the index. This turns out to depend solely on the independence number of the defining graph. We also make a conjecture for right-angled Coxeter groups and prove that it holds in a limited setting., 34 pages

We study mapping class group orbits of homotopy and isotopy classes of curves with self-intersections. We exhibit the asymptotics of the number of such orbits of curves with a bounded number of self-intersections, as the complexity of the surface tends to infinity. We also consider the minimal genus of a subsurface that contains the curve. We determine the asymptotic number of orbits of curves with a fixed minimal genus and a bounded self-intersection number, as the complexity of the surface tends to infinity. As a corollary of our methods, we obtain that most curves that are homotopic are also isotopic. Furthermore, using a theorem by Basmajian, we get a bound on the number of mapping class group orbits on a given a hyperbolic surface that can contain short curves. For a fixed length, this bound is polynomial in the signature of the surface. The arguments we use are based on counting embeddings of ribbon graphs., Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, generalized main result

We prove Poisson approximation results for the bottom part of the length spectrum of a random closed hyperbolic surface of large genus. Here, a random hyperbolic surface is a surface picked at random using the Weil-Petersson volume form on the corresponding moduli space. As an application of our result, we compute the large genus limit of the expected systole., 21 pages, final version

This article is about the graph genus of certain well studied graphs in surface theory: the curve, pants and flip graphs. We study both the genus of these graphs and the genus of their quotients by the mapping class group. The full graphs, except for in some low complexity cases, all have infinite genus. The curve graph once quotiented by the mapping class group has the genus of a complete graph so its genus is well known by a theorem of Ringel and Youngs. For the other two graphs we are able to identify the precise growth rate of the graph genus in terms of the genus of the underlying surface. The lower bounds are shown using probabilistic methods., 26 pages, 9 figures