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For fixed $g\ge 2$, a constant $B_g$ bounds all cuff lengths in some pants decomposition of every closed genus-$g$ hyperbolic surface. Together with Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates this implies Mumford's compactness theorem.

For fixed genus $g\ge 2$ and systole lower bound $\epsilon >0$, a uniform finite length cutoff $L$ determines the entire unmarked length spectrum of a closed hyperbolic surface in the thick part, including multiplicities. Equality up to $L$ forces equality everywhere. This is a finite-determination statement for spectra and does not claim that all isospectral surfaces are isometric.

A simple closed curve that is a geodesic of length $\ell$ on a hyperbolic surface has an embedded collar of half-width $w$ with $\sinh w\sinh (\ell /2)=1$. In circumference-one coordinates its metric is $d{r}^2+{\ell }^2{\cosh }^{2}rd{t}^2$, and its conformal modulus of an annulus is $(2/\ell )\arctan (\mathrm{csch}(\ell /2))\sim \pi /\ell$.

After cutting a hyperbolic surface along a simple closed geodesic, reglue its two boundary copies after an arclength displacement $\tau$. The boundary length remains fixed, while the Riemannian metric varies. In marked Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates, the twist is real-valued; changing it by one boundary length corresponds to a Dehn twist in the marking. This construction also applies to a hyperbolic pair of pants with a fixed cone angle and two geodesic boundaries.

For a fixed pants decomposition of a closed genus-$g$ hyperbolic surface, its $3g-3$ cuff lengths determine all its Y-pieces. Two suitably chosen transverse simple closed curves at each cuff, one obtained from the other by a Dehn twist, determine the corresponding twist: hyperbolic seam identities express their lengths through shifted hyperbolic cosines of that twist, removing the sign ambiguity of just one transversal. Thus finitely many marked lengths determine the Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates. The unmarked length spectrum lacks these labels, which is why this fact alone does not imply global spectral uniqueness.

For a fixed closed hyperbolic surface, there are only finitely many isometry classes with its Laplacian spectrum. The Selberg trace formula gives a common discrete length spectrum and common positive hyperbolic systole. Mumford's compactness theorem confines this family to a compact subset of moduli space. If distinct members accumulated, choose nearby markings at an accumulation point and use finite length coordinates for hyperbolic surfaces. Each of these finitely many lengths converges while remaining in one discrete spectrum, so it is eventually constant. The length coordinates then force eventual equality, a contradiction. This finiteness theorem is weaker than the Wolpert generic spectral rigidity theorem.

In a finite hyperbolic covering, primitive lifts of a primitive closed geodesic correspond to cycles of its monodromy permutation; an $r$-cycle gives length $r\ell (\gamma )$. In a real-analytic family of compact hyperbolic surfaces or hyperbolic cone orbifolds, a prescribed multiple of a simple curve's length can be isolated generically from unrelated lifted lengths. To exclude an identity of length functions, pinch the simple curve: only its peripheral powers can have length tending to zero, while intersecting curves are long by the collar lemma. The countably many remaining length equalities have empty interior, so the Baire category theorem supplies a parameter avoiding them. Only finitely many closed geodesics lie below a fixed local length bound; thus the isolation persists in an open parameter neighbourhood. This makes cycle-intersection information an intrinsic obstruction to an isometry, rather than an invariant of a chosen covering map alone.

For closed hyperbolic surfaces of curvature $-1$, equality of the Laplace-Beltrami operator spectra, including multiplicities, is equivalent to equality of the unmarked length spectra of closed geodesics. The Selberg trace formula proves the equivalence. Primitive lengths with multiplicities and the multiset including their iterates determine one another, provided the same orientation convention is used.

The metric area of a hyperbolic surface. In the Poincaré half-plane model the density is $dxdy/y^2$. A finite-area torsion-free quotient of genus $g$ with $r$ cusps has area $2\pi (2g-2+r)$ by the Gauss-Bonnet theorem.

For a marked closed hyperbolic surface, the representation of its fundamental group whose image acts as the deck group on the hyperbolic plane. It is discrete and faithful, determined up to conjugation by the marking and the metric, and gives $X={\mathbb{H}}^2/\rho ({\pi }_1{\Sigma }_g)$. For a closed orientable surface it admits determinant-one lifts. It is different from the tangent-space action of the Riemannian holonomy group.

A geodesic polygon in the hyperbolic plane is bounded by finitely many geodesic segments. For curvature $-1$, its area is its angle defect, as given by hyperbolic polygon area. Pairing equally long edges produces hyperbolic surfaces, with smoothness at glued vertices determined by their total angles.

A Y-piece is a compact curvature-$-1$ hyperbolic surface homeomorphic to a pair of pants, with three geodesic boundary curves. Its labelled boundary lengths ${\ell }_1,{\ell }_2,{\ell }_3>0$ determine it up to isometry. Cutting along the three mutually perpendicular seams produces two congruent right-angled hyperbolic hexagons with alternating sides ${\ell }_i/2$. Conversely, doubling the hexagon along its other three sides constructs the Y-piece for arbitrary positive lengths.

The unmarked length spectrum of a compact hyperbolic surface is the multiset of lengths of its closed geodesics, with a consistent convention for primitive curves and orientation. The marked version labels lengths by free homotopy classes. The Selberg trace formula relates the unmarked multiset to the Laplace-Beltrami operator spectrum.

For a closed hyperbolic surface with a specified marking of its fundamental group, assign to each nontrivial conjugacy class the length of its unique closed geodesic. Retaining the group label is stronger than retaining only the unmarked length multiset: it also records which lengths belong to intersecting curves or powers of particular curves.

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.

Take the nonnegative scalar Laplace-Beltrami operator $\Delta =-\mathrm{div}\nabla$ on a closed compact Riemannian manifold, and include every eigenvalue with its multiplicity. The spectrum contains substantial global geometric information, but generally does not determine the Riemannian metric up to isometry. Specifying the operator and its domain matters: the spectrum on functions is different information from the spectra of the Hodge Laplacian on differential forms, and a boundary requires fixed boundary conditions.

The Weyl law makes dimension and volume audible. If $N(\lambda )$ counts eigenvalues at most $\lambda$, thenwhere ${\omega }_d$ is the volume of the Euclidean unit ball. Thus the growth exponent recovers $d$, and its leading coefficient recovers $\mathrm{Vol}(M)$. The multiplicity of zero gives the number of connected components: a function in the kernel has $\int |\nabla f{|}^2=0$ and hence is constant on each component.

More detailed invariants come from the heat trace, which is determined directly by the spectrum:The first heat invariants for a closed manifold areHere $R$ is scalar curvature, $\mathrm{Ric}$ the Ricci curvature, and $\mathrm{Rm}$ the Riemann curvature tensor. A divergence term in the local coefficient integrates to zero on a closed manifold. The expansion supplies further integrated curvature expressions, rather than a pointwise curvature map.

On a closed surface, $R=2K$, $|\mathrm{Ric}{|}^2=2K^2$ and $|\mathrm{Rm}{|}^2=4K^2$, so the same coefficients becomeThe Gauss-Bonnet theorem gives $\int KdA=2\pi \chi (M)$; hence the constant term of the heat trace is $\chi (M)/6$. In particular the Euler characteristic, and for a connected orientable surface its genus, are spectrally determined. There is even spectral determination of hyperbolic curvature on a surface: if this spectrum agrees with that of a curvature-$-1$ surface, the coefficients give $\int K=-A$ and $\int K^2=A$, whenceThus $K=-1$ everywhere. This determines local curvature, while leaving room for globally nonisometric hyperbolic surfaces.

Geodesic information is also accessible in important settings. For closed hyperbolic surfaces, the Selberg trace formula makes the scalar spectrum equivalent to the unmarked length spectrum with its appropriate multiplicities. This does not supply a marked length spectrum: it does not identify which group element or intersecting curve has a given length. For general manifolds, one must not simply assert this equivalence; the singularities of the wave trace can be affected by degeneracies and cancellations.

The historic development separates these positive results from the inverse problem. Weyl's 1911 eigenvalue asymptotics established the leading geometric information. The Minakshisundaram-Pleijel heat expansion of 1949 brought local curvature into the short-time analysis. In 1964 Milnor exhibited nonisometric flat tori in dimension sixteen with identical scalar spectra, showing that all eigenvalues together need not recover the metric. Kac's 1966 question about a vibrating drum popularized the corresponding inverse problem for planar domains. Vignéras's 1980 hyperbolic examples and the Sunada theorem of 1985 extended the supply of counterexamples; the latter turns Gassmann equivalence of finite subgroups into a geometric construction. The four-dimensional tetracode length-isospectral lattice construction and the planar examples of Gordon, Webb and Wolpert in 1992 made nonuniqueness explicit in smaller dimensions and in the original drum setting.

Nor is scalar isospectrality a universal topological invariant strong enough to determine the manifold. For example, Tetra and Didi are scalar-isospectral closed orientable flat three-manifolds with first Betti numbers one and zero. Their topology therefore differs. The spectra of all Hodge Laplacians would detect these Betti numbers through the dimensions of their zero eigenspaces, illustrating the extra information obtained by changing the operator. Dimension, volume and many integrated invariants are determined; the full metric and, in general, the topology are not.

Let $V={\mathbb{F}}_2^3$. Since ${\mathbb{F}}_2^{\times }=\{1\}$ and the scalar centre is trivial,Choose $U_1$ to stabilize a nonzero vector and $U_2$ to stabilize a two-dimensional subspace. There are seven choices of either object, so both subgroups have index $7$ and order $24$.

Their coset permutation characters agree. The number of nonzero vectors fixed by $g$ is $2^{\dim \ker (g-I)}-1$. A two-dimensional subspace is the kernel of a unique nonzero covector, so its stabilizer action is the dual action $g^{-T}$. Its fixed-point count isusing equality of the matrix ranks of a matrix and its transpose. For a subgroup $H$, counting the representatives of fixed cosets givesThus the equal characters and subgroup orders give equal intersection counts with every conjugacy class. This proves $U_1,U_2$ are Gassmann equivalent.

They are not conjugate. For example, the stabilizer of $e_1$ contains every matrix $\left(\begin{array}{cc}1& b\\ 0& B\end{array}\right)$ with $b\in {\mathbb{F}}_2^{1\times 2}$ and $B\in \mathrm{GL}(2,2)$. An invariant plane containing $e_1$ would give an invariant line in $V/⟨e_1⟩$, impossible for the full $\mathrm{GL}(2,2)$ action. An invariant plane not containing $e_1$ would be a complement to that line, but the arbitrary shears $b$ do not preserve any such complement. Hence a point stabilizer preserves no plane, whereas every conjugate of $U_2$ does. The two subgroups are nonconjugate.

We now use a cone-torus construction of genus-four Sunada surfaces. Let $B$ be a hyperbolic torus with one cone point of angle $2\pi /7$. Its orbifold fundamental group has presentationMap $a,d$ to the supplied generators $A,D$ of $G$. Their commutator has exact order $7$, so this gives a surjection $\Gamma \to G$ with torsion-free kernel $K$: every finite-order element of $\Gamma$ is conjugate to a power of the cone generator, and no nonidentity such power lies in $K$. Thus $N={\mathbb{H}}^2/K$ is a smooth closed hyperbolic surface with a $G$-action. Its quotients by $U_1,U_2$ are smooth too, since order-$24$ subgroups contain no element of order $7$ and therefore meet no cone stabilizer.

The orbifold Euler characteristic of $B$ is $-(1-1/7)=-6/7$. Each quotient cover has degree $7$, soThe Sunada theorem proved in Question 3 makes $S_1,S_2$ isospectral for every choice of the base hyperbolic metric.

Here is an explicit supply of base metrics. A hyperbolic trirectangle has three right angles and a fourth angle $\alpha =\pi /14$. If its sides adjacent to the opposite right-angle vertex have lengths $r,s$, the trirectangle identity is $\sinh r\sinh s=\cos \alpha$. Thus $r>0$ varies freely, with $s=\mathrm{arsinh}(\cos \alpha /\sinh r)$. Reflecting four copies about their two perpendicular centre lines gives a quadrilateral with four angles $\pi /14$ and opposite sides of equal length. Identifying opposite sides produces a cone torus: all four corners give total angle $2\pi /7$. Its two centre-line geodesics intersect once and have lengths $2r,2s$. Cut along the shorter chosen geodesic $d$ and reglue with a small twist $\tau$; this retains the cone angle and allows an additional metric parameter. The remaining cut surface has two equal-length geodesic boundaries and the cone point.

We give a concrete intersection test for nonisometric finite covers, rather than relying on subgroup nonconjugacy alone. Choose $\ell (d)=\epsilon$ sufficiently small. The trirectangle geometry gives an embedded collar of width $\log (1/\epsilon )+O(1)$ about $d$. The shortest perpendicular joining the two boundary components after cutting has length $\delta =2\log (1/\epsilon )+O(1)$. At zero twist it closes to $a$, the unique shortest closed geodesic crossing $d$ once. Uniqueness follows from uniqueness of the shortest perpendicular; all other once-crossing classes have a positive length gap, since only finitely many closed geodesics have bounded length. For sufficiently small twists, the same marked class $a$ remains the unique shortest once-crossing geodesic. A geodesic crossing $d$ at least twice traverses the collar at least twice, so for small $\epsilon$ its length is greater than $\ell (a)$.

Geodesics disjoint from $d$ remain entirely in the cut surface and have twist-independent lengths. In a bounded window around $\ell (a)$ they supply only finitely many possible length values, including lengths of iterates. Meanwhile $\ell (a)$ varies nontrivially with $\tau$ by the hyperbolic seam identity: its hyperbolic cosine has a positive multiple of $\cosh (\tau /2)$. Choose a small twist away from those finitely many coincidences. Then the only base geodesic of length $\ell (a)$ is $a$, up to orientation. By taking $\epsilon$ smaller if necessary, the only base geodesics of length at most $2\epsilon$ are powers of $d$: those crossing $d$ are long, and the nonperipheral geodesics of the limiting two-cusped cone pair of pants have lengths bounded away from zero.

In each cover, primitive lift components of a base geodesic are indexed by cycles of its monodromy permutation, with length equal to the cycle size times its base length. The permutation of $A$ has a unique singleton $\{0\}$ in each action, so each $S_i$ has a uniquely length-identified primitive lift ${\alpha }_i$ of length $\ell (a)$. The permutation of $D$ has one two-cycle: it is $\{0,3\}$ for $U_1$ and $\{2,5\}$ for $U_2$. Hence each $S_i$ has a unique primitive lift ${\beta }_i$ of length $2\epsilon$; the iterate of the singleton lift is not primitive. At the single base intersection of $a,d$, intersections of their lifted components are exactly their common sheet labels. ThereforeAn isometry would have to preserve the uniquely identified primitive lengths and their geometric intersection numbers. This contradiction proves that $S_1$ and $S_2$ are not isometric, even allowing orientation reversal.

Finally, let $\epsilon$ range over a sufficiently small positive interval, choosing a permissible twist for each value. The singleton cycle of $D$ makes the hyperbolic systole of each cover equal to $\epsilon$. Distinct values therefore give distinct isometry classes. We obtain uncountably many pairs of nonisometric, isospectral genus-four Riemann surfaces.

Throughout the hyperbolic discussion take curvature $-1$ and $g\ge 2$. A Y-piece is a pair of pants with a hyperbolic metric and three geodesic boundary components. Three labelled positive boundary lengths ${\ell }_1,{\ell }_2,{\ell }_3$ determine it up to isometry. To see existence and uniqueness, cut along the three shortest perpendicular seams. The two resulting right-angled hyperbolic hexagons have alternating side lengths ${\ell }_i/2$, which determine each hexagon. Conversely, any three positive alternating lengths produce such a hexagon, and doubling along the other sides produces the desired Y-piece. In particular the seam opposite ${\ell }_i$ satisfies

An X-piece is a four-holed hyperbolic sphere with geodesic boundaries, obtained by joining two Y-pieces along one pair of equal-length boundaries. For a chosen separating curve, it is determined bywhere $s$ is the common gluing length and $\tau$ is the relative arclength twist, measured between chosen seam endpoints. The identification reverses boundary orientation so that the surface is oriented. For an unmarked gluing, $\tau$ is periodic modulo $s$; a marking retains $\tau \in \mathbb{R}$, because a full Dehn twist changes the marking. These six parameters describe the X-piece with its chosen separating curve; different curve choices or boundary symmetries can describe the same unmarked surface.

Choose a pants decomposition of a closed oriented genus-$g$ surface. Each Y-piece has Euler characteristic $-1$, and gluing boundary circles does not change the total Euler characteristic. Thus there are $2g-2$ pieces. Their $3(2g-2)$ boundary circles are paired, giving $3g-3$ gluing curves. Choose their disjoint geodesic representatives, then prescribe each cuff length and its relative twist. The Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates areThey determine the marked hyperbolic surface and hence its unmarked isometry class, with $6g-6$ real parameters. One must also fix the combinatorial gluing pattern of the chosen pants decomposition. Full twists and other changes of marking identify some parameter sets in unmarked moduli space of Riemann surfaces. The genus restriction matters: a sphere and a torus do not admit a closed curvature-$-1$ metric or such a decomposition into geodesic Y-pieces.

For a fixed oriented topological surface $S_g$, Teichmüller space ${\mathcal{T}}_g$ consists of marked Riemann surfaces $(X,f:S_g\to X)$. Two markings represent the same point when a conformal isomorphism between the surfaces carries one marking to the other up to homotopy. By the uniformization theorem, for $g\ge 2$ these are equivalently marked curvature-$-1$ metrics. The displayed Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates identify ${\mathcal{T}}_g$ with a cell of real dimension $6g-6$; the mapping class group quotient gives the unmarked moduli space of Riemann surfaces.

The spectral version of the Wolpert generic spectral rigidity theorem says that outside a closed proper real-analytic exceptional subset of ${\mathcal{T}}_g$, the Laplace spectrum determines the hyperbolic surface up to isometry. The exceptional subset has positive codimension and is invariant under changes of marking. Orientation reversal must be allowed, since the Laplacian cannot detect orientation. Equivalently, a generic surface is determined by its unmarked length spectrum, counted with multiplicities. This is a generic uniqueness statement, not a claim that every isospectral pair is isometric; the construction in Question 4 lies in the exceptional locus.

Three major ingredients and their roles are as follows.

For completeness, a related finiteness statement sometimes grouped with this theorem is that a fixed closed hyperbolic surface has only finitely many isospectral isometry classes. Its short proof uses three particularly concrete tools: a common discrete length spectrum; Mumford's compactness theorem, applied to the common positive systole; and finitely many determining marked lengths. Compactness would give an accumulation point if an isospectral family were infinite. Nearby markings make each determining length converge, while discreteness of the fixed spectrum makes it eventually constant. The determining lengths then force eventual equality of the marked surfaces, a contradiction. This finiteness of isospectral hyperbolic surfaces statement does not replace the stronger generic uniqueness assertion above.

A Riemann surface is a connected one-complex-dimensional complex manifold: it has local complex coordinates with holomorphic transition maps. These coordinates induce an orientation and a conformal structure. Fix a closed oriented topological surface $S_g$ of genus $g$. A point of Teichmüller space is a marked Riemann surface $(X,f)$, where $f:S_g\to X$ is an orientation-preserving marking. Two pairs are equivalent if there is a biholomorphism $h:X\to X^{\prime }$ with $h\circ f$ isotopic to $f^{\prime }$. Thus the marking remembers how curves on the reference surface sit in $X$; forgetting it gives the moduli space of Riemann surfaces, obtained by quotienting by the mapping class group.

For $g\ge 2$, the uniformization theorem supplies a unique curvature-$-1$ hyperbolic metric in each conformal class. A pants decomposition has $3g-3$ cuffs, and their positive lengths together with their real twists give Fenchel–Nielsen coordinates. HenceFor completeness, ${\mathcal{T}}_0$ is a point, whereas ${\mathcal{T}}_1$ is the upper half-plane, parametrizing marked complex tori $\mathbb{C}/(\mathbb{Z}+\tau \mathbb{Z})$ with $\mathrm{Im}\tau >0$.

The Wolpert generic spectral rigidity theorem says that, for fixed $g\ge 2$, there is a closed proper real-analytic exceptional subset of ${\mathcal{T}}_g$ such that a hyperbolic surface outside that subset is determined up to isometry by its unmarked length spectrum, equivalently its Laplacian spectrum. This is an unoriented isometry statement: reversing orientation cannot be detected by either spectrum.

The Huber spectral equivalence theorem says that two closed curvature-$-1$ hyperbolic surfaces have the same Laplacian spectrum, with multiplicities, if and only if they have the same unmarked length spectrum, with multiplicities. One may consistently count unoriented closed geodesics including their iterates; alternatively, the primitive multiset determines the multiset with iterates and conversely. This equivalence comes from the Selberg trace formula.

The Buser finite length spectrum theorem is the finite-determination ingredient: for each $g\ge 2$ and $\epsilon >0$ there is a finite number $L(g,\epsilon )$ such that, for any two closed hyperbolic surfaces of genus $g$ with hyperbolic systole at least $\epsilon$, equality of their length multisets through $L(g,\epsilon )$ implies equality of their entire length spectra. The finite-length statement is used in Buser's chapter on Wolpert's theorem. It determines the full spectrum, not necessarily the isometry class.

Here is a proof of the Buser finite length spectrum theorem through finite spectral matching by polynomial invariants. We use the following subsidiary results, stating the required content. First, Mumford's compactness theorem makes the part of the genus-$g$ moduli space of Riemann surfaces with hyperbolic systole at least $\epsilon$ compact. Second, marked hyperbolic holonomy representations of a closed oriented surface lift from ${\mathrm{PSL}}_2(\mathbb{R})$ to ${\mathrm{SL}}_2(\mathbb{R})$, and normalized representatives can be chosen continuously on sufficiently small parameter charts. Their hyperbolic translation length satisfiesThird, the length spectrum of a compact hyperbolic surface is locally finite, and metrics on compact marked parameter charts are uniformly bilipschitz equivalent. Finally, the Hilbert basis theorem implies that a descending sequence of algebraic sets in a finite-dimensional affine space stabilizes. These are compactness, holonomy, elementary geometric finiteness and algebraic finiteness results; none is the finite unmarked-spectrum assertion we are proving.

By compactness, finitely many relatively compact marked charts cover the thick moduli space of Riemann surfaces. Choose normalized lifted hyperbolic holonomy representations on these charts and take their compact closures. Their finite union $K$ is a compact set of determinant-one matrix tuples representing every surface in the thick part, possibly more than once. Each tuple records the images of the $2g$ generators of the fundamental group. Thus $K$ sits in a fixed finite-dimensional real matrix space. Every group word is a polynomial in these matrix entries: multiplication is polynomial, and for a determinant-one two-by-two matrix its inverse is its adjugate, also polynomial. Consequently each $q_{\gamma }$ is a polynomial on the ambient space. Squared traces remove the sign ambiguity of the lift, and $4{\cosh }^2(\ell /2)$ is strictly increasing for positive $\ell$.

Enumerate the unoriented nontrivial free homotopy classes as ${\gamma }_1,{\gamma }_2,\dots$, including the iterates, and write ${\ell }_j(x)$ for their geodesic lengths at $x\in K$. The uniform finiteness of short geodesic classes follows here directly: on each of the finitely many compact marked charts, choose a fixed reference metric $h$ and a uniform bilipschitz constant $C$. A class with ${\ell }_j(x)\le R$ somewhere on that chart has reference length at most $CR$. Only finitely many classes have that reference length, and a finite union of these finite collections is finite. In particular, for every $j$ the candidate setis finite. If two parameters in $K$ have equal lengths for classes $j,k$, then $k\in F_j$. These candidate sets depend on the fixed compact set $K$ and the source label $j$, not on the number of labels currently being matched.

For every $N$, define $E_N$ in the full ambient space of pairs of matrix tuples $(x,y)$ as follows. Require an injective choice $\sigma :\{1,\dots ,N\}\to \mathbb{N}$ with $\sigma (j)\in F_j$ andand independently require an injective choice $\tau :\{1,\dots ,N\}\to \mathbb{N}$ with $\tau (j)\in F_j$ andThere are finitely many possible pairs of choices $(\sigma ,\tau )$ because every $F_j$ is finite. For each choice these are finitely many polynomial equations. Therefore $E_N$ is a finite union of algebraic sets, hence an algebraic set. Restricting an injective matching to its first $N$ entries provesThe Hilbert basis theorem now supplies $N_0$ such that $E_N=E_{N_0}$ for all $N\ge N_0$. This step takes place in a fixed affine space and uses polynomial equations, so it gives stabilization of the actual sets, not just stabilization of germs at individual parameters.

For $(x,y)\in E_{N_0}\cap (K\times K)$, stabilization gives injective partial length matchings in both directions for every $N$. Fix any length $a>0$. Only finitely many labels have length $a$ at $x$ or at $y$, by local finiteness. Take $N$ large enough to contain every such label at $x$. Its injective matching into the labels at $y$ preserves $q_j$, and hence preserves length, so the multiplicity of $a$ at $x$ is at most its multiplicity at $y$. The reverse matching gives the opposite inequality. Thus the two multiplicities are equal for every $a$, proving equality of the entire unmarked length spectra. No assumed global matching or unjustified exchange of infinitely many neighborhoods is needed.

Finally choose a numberSuppose the two length multisets agree through $L$. For each of the first $N_0$ labels at $x$, select a distinct equal-length label at $y$, which is possible precisely because the truncated multisets agree with multiplicity. Each selected label belongs to the corresponding $F_j$. Do the same in the reverse direction. Then $(x,y)\in E_{N_0}$, and the previous paragraph proves equality of the full length spectra. Since $K$ was selected using only the fixed thick genus-$g$ parameter space, the resulting finite $L$ depends only on $g,\epsilon$. This proveswith each intersection interpreted as a multiset. By the Huber spectral equivalence theorem, the corresponding entire Laplacian spectra also agree. This is the finite matching reduction needed before the analytic and geometric rigidity steps in the Wolpert generic spectral rigidity theorem.

For a nonsingular smooth flow generated by $F$ on a closed manifold, the Anosov flow condition is a continuous $D{\varphi }_t$-invariant splittingand constants $C,\lambda >0$ such that, for all $t\ge 0$,The norm can come from any auxiliary Riemannian metric; compactness makes the resulting definitions equivalent. The centre direction is the flow direction, with $F$ nowhere zero.

One construction is a suspension flow. The hyperbolic toral automorphism of ${\mathbb{T}}^2$ defined byhas eigenvalues ${\lambda }_{\pm }=(3\pm \sqrt{5})/2$, with $0<{\lambda }_{-}<1<{\lambda }_{+}$. Form the closed three-dimensional mapping torus $({\mathbb{T}}^2\times [0,1])/((x,1)\sim (Ax,0))$ and move in the second coordinate at unit speed. Each crossing of the section applies $A$. The two one-dimensional eigenspaces give invariant transverse bundles, and after $k$ crossings their derivatives multiply by ${\lambda }_{-}^k$ and ${\lambda }_{+}^k$. The difference between $k$ and elapsed time is bounded, so any smooth Riemannian metric gives the required uniform exponential estimates. The vertical direction supplies the centre line.

A different construction is the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle of a closed oriented hyperbolic surface. This bundle is a closed three-manifold. In curvature $-1$, a normal Jacobi field along a unit-speed geodesic satisfies $j^{\prime \prime }-j=0$. The initial data $(j,j^{\prime })=(a,-a)$ give $j(t)=a{e}^{-t}$, while $(a,a)$ give $j(t)=a{e}^t$. The linearized geodesic flow transports these initial data as $(j(t),j^{\prime }(t))$, so they give one stable and one unstable direction with precisely those exponential rates. The remaining tangent direction is the geodesic vector field. Thus this also constructs an Anosov flow, using geometric rather than return-map hyperbolicity.