On Families of Bowen – Series-Like Maps for Surface Groups

We review some recent results on a class of maps, called Bowen – Series-like maps, obtained from a class of group presentations for surface groups. These maps are piecewise homeomorphisms of the circle with finitely many discontinuities. The topological entropy of each map in the class and its relationship with the growth function of the group presentation is discussed, as well as the computation of these invariants.