Related papers: Representing Dehn twists with branched coverings
We present several structural results on closed, nonorientable, smooth $4$--manifolds, extending analogous results and machinery for the orientable case. We prove the existence of simplified broken Lefschetz fibrations and simplified…
For $X$ any complete intersection of even complex dimension or any connected sum thereof (or, more generally, any space among certain broad classes of smooth manifolds), we concretely construct diffeomorphisms $a,c$ of punctured $X$ rel…
A branched covering surface-knot is a surface-knot in the form of a branched covering over an oriented surface-knot $F$, where we include the case when the covering has no branch points. A branched covering surface-knot is presented by a…
We prove that Stein surfaces with boundary coincide up to orientation preserving diffeomorphisms with simple branched coverings of $\B^4$ whose branch set is a positive braided surface. As a consequence, we have that a smooth oriented…
We continue our study of the monoid of right-veering diffeomorphisms on a compact oriented surface with nonempty boundary, introduced in [HKM2]. We conduct a detailed study of the case when the surface is a punctured torus; in particular,…
We study Dehn--Seidel twists on configurations of Lagrangian spheres in symplectic $K3$ surfaces, using tools from Seiberg--Witten theory. In the case of $ADE$ configurations of Lagrangian spheres, we prove that a naturally associated…
For every $n\ge 2$, the {\em surface Houghton group} $\mathcal B_n$ is defined as the asymptotically rigid mapping class group of a surface with exactly $n$ ends, all of them non-planar. The groups $\mathcal B_n$ are analogous to, and in…
We give an explicit formula for the action of the Dehn twist along a simple closed curve in a compact connected oriented surface on the completion of the filtered skein modules. To do this, we introduce filtrations of the Kauffman bracket…
Let $W$ be a nonorientable $4$-dimensional handlebody without $3$- and $4$-handles. We show that $W$ admits a Lefschetz fibration over the $2$-disk, whose regular fiber is a nonorientable surface with nonempty boundary. This is an analogue…
The existence of a positive allowable Lefschetz fibration on a compact Stein surface with boundary was established by Loi and Piergallini by using branched covering techniques. Here we give an alternative simple proof of this fact and…
We consider finite-sheeted, regular, possibly branched covering spaces of compact surfaces with boundary and the associated liftable and symmetric mapping class groups. In particular, we classify when either of these subgroups coincides…
We establish a relationship between Heegaard Floer homology and the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of surface automorphisms. Specifically, we show that the rank of the Heegaard Floer homology of a 3-manifold bounds the absolute value of…
We introduce a Lie algebra associated with a non-orientable surface, which is an analogue for the Goldman Lie algebra of an oriented surface. As an application, we deduce an explicit formula of the Dehn twist along an annulus simple closed…
We show that there exists a non-trivial simplified broken Lefschetz fibration which has infinitely many homotopy classes of sections. We also construct a non-trivial simplified broken Lefschetz fibration which has a section with…
A filling Dehn surface in a $3$-manifold $M$ is a generically immersed surface in $M$ that induces a cellular decomposition of $M$. Given a tame link $L$ in $M$ there is a filling Dehn sphere of $M$ that "trivializes" (\emph{diametrically…
We construct several families of embeddings of braid groups into mapping class groups of orientable and non-orientable surfaces and prove that they induce the trivial map in stable homology in the orientable case, but not so in the…
We show that the morphisms from the braid group with n strands in the mapping class group of a surface with a possible non empty boundary, assuming that its genus is smaller or equal to n/2 are either cyclic morphisms (their images are…
The generalized Dehn twist along a closed curve in an oriented surface is an algebraic construction which involves intersections of loops in the surface. It is defined as an automorphism of the Malcev completion of the fundamental group of…
A \textit{multicurve} $\C$ on a closed orientable surface is defined to be a finite collection of disjoint non-isotopic essential simple closed curves. The Dehn twist $t_{\C}$ about $\C$ is the product of the Dehn twists about the…
In this paper we obtain the following results: (1) Any compact Stein surface with boundary embeds naturally into a symplectic Lefschetz fibration over the 2-sphere. (2) There exists a minimal elliptic fibration over the 2-disk, which is not…