Dehn Twists and Products of Mapping Classes of Riemann Surfaces with One Puncture

Let S be a Riemann surface that contains one puncture x. Let ℐ be the collection of simple closed geodesics on S, and let ℱ denote the set of mapping classes on S isotopic to the identity on S ∪ {x}. Denote by t _c the positive Dehn twist about a curve c ∈ ℐ. In this paper, the author studies the products of forms (t _b ^−m ∘ t _a ⁿ ) ∘ f ^k , where a, b ∈ ℐ and f ∈ ℱ. It is easy to see that if a = b or a, b are boundary components of an x-punctured cylinder on S, then one may find an element f ∈ ℱ such that the sequence (t _b ^−m ∘ t _n ^a ) ∘ f ^k contains infinitely many powers of Dehn twists. The author shows that the converse statement remains true, that is, if the sequence (t _b ^−m ∘ t _a ⁿ ) ∘ f ^k contains infinitely many powers of Dehn twists, then a, b must be the boundary components of an x-punctured cylinder on S and f is a power of the spin map t _b ⁻¹ ∘ t _a .