Meanders, hyperelliptic pillowcase covers, and the Johnson filtration

Abstract We provide minimal constructions of meanders with particular combinatorics. Using these meanders, we give minimal constructions of hyperelliptic pillowcase covers with a single horizontal cylinder and simultaneously a single vertical cylinder so that one or both of the core curves are separating curves on the underlying surface. In the case where both of the core curves are separating, we use these surfaces in a construction of Aougab–Taylor in order to prove that for any hyperelliptic connected component of the moduli space of quadratic differentials with no poles there exist ratio-optimising pseudo-Anosovs lying arbitrarily deep in the Johnson filtration and stabilising the Teichmüller disk of a quadratic differential lying in this connected component.