Reidemeister-Franz Torsion of Compact Orientable Surfaces via Pants Decomposition

Abstract

Let $\Sigma_{g,n}$ denote the compact orientable surface with genus $g\geq 2$ and boundary disjoint union of $n$ circles. By using a particular pants-decomposition of $\Sigma_{g,n},$ we obtain a formula that computes the Reidemeister torsion of $\Sigma_{g,n}$ in terms of Reidemeister torsions of pairs of pants.