Teichmueller curves, triangle groups, and Lyapunov exponents

Irene I. Bouw, Martin Moeller

Published 2005-11-30, updated 2006-03-29Version 2

We construct a Teichmueller curve uniformized by the Fuchsian triangle group (m,n,\infty) for every m<n. Our construction includes the Teichmueller curves constructed by Veech and Ward as special cases. The construction essentially relies on properties of hypergeometric differential operators. For small m, we find Billiard tables that generate these Teichmueller curves. We interprete some of the so-called Lyapunov exponents of the Kontsevich--Zorich cocycle as normalized degrees of some natural line bundles on a Teichmueller curves. We determine the Lyapunov exponents for the Teichmueller curves we construct.