On the Jacobian of the Douady-Earle extension

Abstract

Given an isotopy class between two closed hyperbolic surfaces, the Douady--Earle extension provides a unique analytic diffeomorphism representative. In this paper we investigate the Jacobian of the Douady--Earle extension map $F$. We prove that $|\operatorname{Jac} F| \equiv 1$ precisely when $F$ is an isometry. Moreover, we construct a sequence of hyperbolic surfaces $\{\Sigma_i\}$ together with a fixed domain surface $\Sigma_0$ for which the Douady--Earle extension maps $F_i:\Sigma_0\to\Sigma_i$ satisfy $\max_{x\in\Sigma_0} \operatorname{Jac} F_i \to +\infty$.