 Orbifold fundamental group

The orbifold fundamental group records loops together with their local isotropy relations, so a loop around a cone point of order $m$ has its $m$th power trivial rather than being trivial itself. For an oriented closed surface of genus $g$ with cone orders $m_1,\dots ,m_r$, its presentation is $⟨a_1,b_1,\dots ,a_g,b_g,c_1,\dots ,c_r\mid c_i^{m_i}=1,{\prod }_j[a_j,b_j]c_1\cdots c_r=1⟩$. A torsion-free finite-index subgroup of a hyperbolic surface orbifold gives a smooth locally isometric surface cover. The absence of torsion means that the subgroup meets no nonidentity local cone stabilizer.