A construction of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms using positive twists

Abstract

We introduce a construction of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms on n-times punctured spheres and surfaces with higher genus using only sufficiently many positive half-twists. These constructions can produce explicit examples of pseudo-Anosov maps with various number-theoretic properties associated to the stretch factors, including examples where the trace field is not totally real and the Galois conjugates of the stretch factor are on the unit circle.