The deficiency of being a congruence group for Veech groups of origamis

Abstract: We study "how far away" a finite index subgroup G of SL(2,Z) is from being a congruence group. For this we define its deficiency of being a congruence group. We show that the index of the image of G in SL(2,Z/nZ) is biggest, if n is the general Wohlfahrt level. We furthermore show that the Veech groups of origamis (or square-tiled surfaces) in the stratum H(2) are far away from being congruence groups and that in each genus one finds an infinite family of origamis such that they are "as far as possible" from being a congruence group.