English

Powers of half-twists and congruence subgroups of braid groups

Group Theory 2025-11-12 v1 Geometric Topology

Abstract

In this work, we study the relationship between congruence subgroups Bn[m]B_n[m] and Nn(σ1m)\mathcal{N}_n(\sigma_1^m) the normal closure of σ1m\sigma_1^m, where σ1\sigma_1 is the classical generator of BnB_n. We characterize the conditions under which Nn(σ1m)\mathcal{N}_n(\sigma_1^m) has finite index in Bn[m]B_n[m] and provide explicit generators for these finite quotients. For the cases where the index is infinite, we show that Bn[m]/Nn(σ1m)B_n[m]/\mathcal{N}_n(\sigma_1^m) contains a free subgroup. Additionally, we compute the Abelianisation of Coxeter braid subgroups in the finite index cases and construct new finite quotients using commutators of congruence subgroups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2511.08472,
  title  = {Powers of half-twists and congruence subgroups of braid groups},
  author = {Paolo Bellingeri and Celeste Damiani and Oscar Ocampo and Charalampos Stylianakis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.08472},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

10 pages. Comments are welcome. To be published in AMS Contemporary Mathematics