The Weil-Petersson curvature operator on the universal Teichm\"uller space

Abstract

The universal Teichm\"uller space is an infinitely dimensional generalization of the classical Teichm\"uller space of Riemann surfaces. It carries a natural Hilbert structure, on which one can define a natural Riemannian metric, the Weil-Petersson metric. In this paper we investigate the Weil-Petersson Riemannian curvature operator $\tilde{Q}$ of the universal Teichm\"uller space with the Hilbert structure, and prove the following: (i) $\tilde{Q}$ is non-positive definite. (ii) $\tilde{Q}$ is a bounded operator. (iii) $\tilde{Q}$ is not compact; the set of the spectra of $\tilde{Q}$ is not discrete. As an application, we show that neither the Quaternionic hyperbolic space nor the Cayley plane can be totally geodesically immersed in the universal Teichm\"uller space endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric.