Inequalities in Discrete Subgroups of PSL(2, R)

Abstract

Conditions for a subgroup, F, of PSL(2, R) to be discrete have been investigated by a number of authors. Jørgensen's inequality [5] gives an elegant necessary condition for discreteness for subgroups of PSL(2, C). Purzitsky, Rosenberger, Matelski, Knapp, and Van Vleck, among others [12, 13, 14, 9, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 7, 21] studied two generator discrete subgroups of PSL(2, R) in a long series of papers. The complete classification of two generator subgroups was surprisingly complicated and elusive. The most complete result appears in [20].In this paper we use the results of [20] to prove that a nonelementary subgroup F of PSL(2, R) is discrete if and only if every non-elementary subgroup, G, generated by two hyperbolics is discrete (Theorem 5.2) and that F contains no elliptics if and only if each such G is free (Theorem 5.1). Thus, we produce necessary and sufficient conditions for a non-elementary subgroup F of PSL(2, R) to be a discrete group without elliptic elements (Theorem 6.1) or a discrete group containing only hyperbolic elements (Theorem 7.1).