Decomposing Multitwists

Abstract

The Decomposition Problem in the class $LIP(\mathbb{S}^2)$ is to decompose any bi-Lipschitz map $f:\mathbb{S}^2 \to \mathbb{S}^2$ as a composition of finitely many maps of arbitrarily small isometric distortion. In this paper, we construct a decomposition for certain bi-Lipschitz maps which spiral around every point of a Cantor set $X$ of Assouad dimension strictly smaller than one. These maps are constructed by considering a collection of Dehn twists on the Riemann surface $\mathbb{S}^2 \setminus X$. The decomposition is then obtained via a bi-Lipschitz path which simultaneously unwinds these Dehn twists. As part of our construction, we also show that $X \subset \mathbb{S}^2$ is uniformly disconnected if and only if the Riemann surface $\mathbb{S}^2 \setminus X$ has a pants decomposition whose cuffs have hyperbolic length uniformly bounded above, which may be of independent interest.