Towards Nielsen-Thurston classification for surfaces of infinite type

Abstract: We introduce and study tame homeomorphisms of surfaces of infinite type. These are maps for which curves under iterations do not accumulate onto geodesic laminations with non-proper leaves, but rather just a union of possibly intersecting curves or proper lines. Assuming an additional finiteness condition on the accumulation set, we prove a Nielsen-Thurston type classification theorem. We prove that for such maps there is a canonical decomposition of the surface into invariant subsurfaces on which the first return is either periodic or a translation.