English

Canonical Symplectic Representations for Prime Order Conjugacy Classes of the Mapping-class Group

Geometric Topology 2007-06-17 v2 Group Theory

Abstract

In this paper we find a unique normal form for the symplectic matrix representation of the conjugacy class of a prime order element of the mapping-class group. We find a set of generators for the fundamental group of a surface with a conformal automorphism of prime order which reflects the action the automorphism in an optimal way. This is called an {\sl adapted} homotopy basis and there is a corresponding {\sl adapted presentation}. We also give a necessary and sufficient condition for a prime order symplectic matrix to be the image of a prime order element in the mapping-class group.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0701330,
  title  = {Canonical Symplectic Representations for Prime Order Conjugacy Classes of the Mapping-class Group},
  author = {Jane Gilman},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0701330},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

24 pages; change in title; typos corrected; some theorems revised; computational complexity added; final version of paper to appear in Journal of Algebra