On finite marked length spectral rigidity of hyperbolic cone surfaces and the Thurston metric

Abstract

We study the geometry of hyperbolic cone surfaces, possibly with cusps or geodesic boundaries. We prove that any hyperbolic cone structure on a surface of non-exceptional type is determined up to isotopy by the geodesic lengths of a finite specific homotopy classes of non-peripheral simple closed curves. As an application, we show that the Thurston asymmetric metric is well-defined on the Teichm\"uller space of hyperbolic cone surfaces with fixed cone angles and boundary lengths. We compare such a Teichm\"uller space with the Teichm\"uller space of complete hyperbolic surfaces with punctures, by showing that the two spaces (endowed with the Thurston metric) are almost isometric.