Compactness theorems for the spaces of distance measure spaces and Riemann surface laminations

Abstract

In this paper, we give a generalisation of Gromov's compactness theorem for metric spaces, more precisely, we give a compactness theorem for the space of distance measure spaces equipped with a \emph{generalised Gromov-Hausdorff-Levi-Prokhorov distance}. Using this result we prove that the Deligne-Mumford compactification is the completion of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces under the generalised Gromov-Hausdorff-Levi-Prokhorov distance. Further we prove a compactness theorem for the space of Riemann surface laminations.