ENUMERATION OF MEANDERS AND MASUR–VEECH VOLUMES

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 computati...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: VINCENT DELECROIX, ÉLISE GOUJARD, PETER ZOGRAF, ANTON ZORICH
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press 2020-01-01
Series:Forum of Mathematics, Pi
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2050508620000025/type/journal_article
Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:2050-5086