Splittings of Surfaces

Abstract

The main result characterizes small actions of surface groups on <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="bold upper R"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="bold">R</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\mathbf {R}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> -trees.