Markoff triples and quasifuchsian groups

We study the global behaviour of trees of Markoff triples overthe complex numbers. We relate this to the space of type-preservingrepresentations of the punctured torus group into SL(2,C). Inparticular, we explore which Markoff triples correspond to quasifuchsianrepresentations. We derive a variation of McShane's identityfor quasifuchsian groups. In the case of non-discrete representations,we attempt to relate the asymptotic behaviour of Markoff triplesto the realisability of laminations in hyperbolic 3-space. Wealso consider how some of these issues might be related formore general surfaces. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification:57M50.