English

The planar pure braid group is a diagram group

Group Theory 2021-09-13 v2 Geometric Topology

Abstract

A planar pure braid consists of nn descending smooth arcs, each connecting a point on one horizontal line 1\ell_{1} to a point on a horizontal line 2\ell_{2}, which is required to be directly below the first point. Two arcs are allowed to cross, but no threefold intersections are allowed. The set Γn\Gamma_{n} of all planar pure braids on nn strands is a group with respect to a natural stacking operation. We show that Γn\Gamma_{n} is always a diagram group, in the sense of Guba and Sapir. A number of consequences follow, including biautomaticity and bi-orderability of the groups Γn\Gamma_{n}. Moreover, each group Γn\Gamma_{n} acts properly and cocompactly on a CAT(0) cubical complex. (The current version corrects a typographical error and acknowledges overlap with earlier work of Genevois.)

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2109.02815,
  title  = {The planar pure braid group is a diagram group},
  author = {Daniel S. Farley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.02815},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

6 pages, 3 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-24T05:44:26.056Z