Closed/open string diagrammatics

Abstract

We introduce a combinatorial model based on measured foliations in surfaces which captures the phenomenology of open/closed string interactions. The predicted equations are derived in this model, and new equations can be discovered as well. In particular, several new equations together with known transformations generate the combinatorial version of open/closed duality. On the topological and chain levels, the algebraic structure discovered is new, but it specializes to a modular bi-operad on the level of homology.