On the number of saddle connections in translation surfaces with poles

Abstract: Translation surfaces with poles correspond to meromorphic differentials on compact Riemann surfaces. They appear in compactifications of strata of the moduli space of Abelian differentials and in the study of stability conditions. Such structures have different geometrical and dynamical properties than usual translation surfaces. In particular, they always have infinite area and can have a finite number of saddle connections. We provide a combinatorial characterization of the strata for which there can be an infinite number of saddle connections and give lower and upper bounds for the number of saddle connections and related quantities.