Fundamental Groups, 3-Braids, and Effective Estimates of Invariants

Abstract

We define invariants of braids rather than invariants of conjugacy classes of braids. For any pure three-braid we give effective upper and lower bounds for these invariants. This is done in terms of a natural syllable decomposition of the word representing the image of the braid in the braid group modulo its center. The bounds differ by a multiplicative constant not depending on the word. Respective bounds are given for all three-braids. We also obtain effective upper and lower bounds for the entropy of pure three-braids in these terms. The proof leads to the study of the extremal length of classes of curves representing elements of the fundamental group of the twice punctured complex plane.