The quarter-gap conjecture for random hyperbolic surfaces with cusps

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Let Mg,n(g)\mathcal{M}_{g,n(g)} be the moduli space of hyperbolic surfaces of genus gg with n(g)n(g) punctures, equipped with the Weil–Petersson probability measure, and let spec⁡(X)\operatorname{spec}(X) denote the spectrum of a surface XX. Assume

lim⁡g→∞n(g)g=0.\lim\limits_{g\to\infty}\frac{n(g)}{\sqrt g}=0.

Quarter-gap conjecture. For every ϵ>0\epsilon>0,

lim⁡g→∞ProbWPg⁡(X∈Mg,n(g); spec⁡(X)∩(0,14−ϵ)=∅)=1.\lim\limits_{g\to\infty}\operatorname{Prob_{WP}^{g}}\left(X\in\mathcal{M}_{g,n(g)};\ \operatorname{spec}(X)\cap\left(0,\frac{1}{4}-\epsilon\right)=\emptyset\right)=1.

This predicts that the lower bound in the established theorem for the regime n(g)=o(g)n(g)=o(\sqrt g) can be improved to the Selberg value 14\frac14, analogously to the conjectural optimal spectral gap for closed hyperbolic surfaces. The statement remains open.

References

Primary source

Yang Shen and Yunhui Wu, “Arbitrarily small spectral gaps for random hyperbolic surfaces with many cusps”, arXiv:2203.15681 (2025).

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