English

On the Burau Representation of $B_4$ modulo $p$

Geometric Topology 2021-08-17 v3 Representation Theory

Abstract

The problem of faithfulness of the (reduced) Burau representation for n=4n =4 is known to be equivalent to the problem of whether certain two matrices AA and BB generate a free group of rank two. It is known that A3A^3 and B3B^3 generate a free group of rank two \cite{9}, \cite{10}, \cite{4}. We prove that they also generate a free group when considered as matrices over the Zp[t,t1]\mathbb{Z}_p[t,t^{-1}] for any integer p>1p > 1.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1904.11730,
  title  = {On the Burau Representation of $B_4$ modulo $p$},
  author = {A. Beridze and S. Bigelow and P. Traczyk},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.11730},
  year   = {2021}
}