Minimal Hyperbolic Area of Teichmuller Curves in Genus Two

Abstract

We determine the minimum hyperbolic area of Teichmuller curves arising from holomorphic quadratic differentials on closed Riemann surfaces of genus two. The minimum is 3\pi/5, and it is attained precisely by quadratic differentials q=\omega^2 for which the translation surface (X,\omega) lies in the GL_2^+(R)-orbit of the double-pentagon translation surface. Equivalently, the extremal projective Veech group is the triangle group \Delta(2,5,\infty). The proof combines a small-area classification of noncompact hyperbolic orbifolds with a derivative-preserving affine descent construction for nonsquare quadratic differentials. The three possible nonsquare zero patterns are then excluded by arithmetic, marked-point, and covering obstructions.