Related papers: Separating twists and the Magnus representation of…

Let G be a finite group acting freely on a compact oriented surface S by homeomorphisms preserving the orientation. Then, there exists a G-invariant Lagrangian subspace in the first homology group of S.

Identifying parallel sides of a collection of Euclidean polygons yields a flat surface with cone points of angles multiples of 2 pi, naturally a compact Riemann surface but also an algebraic curve, and a hyperbolic surface. In general two…

Dilation surfaces, or twisted quadratic differentials, are variants of translation surfaces. In this paper, we study the question of what elements or subgroups of the mapping class group can be realized as affine automorphisms of dilation…

Let N be a regular branched cover of a homology 3-sphere M with deck group G isomorphic to Z_2^d and branch set a trivalent graph Gamma; such a cover is determined by a coloring of the edges of Gamma with elements of G. For each index-2…

First we survey and explain the strategy of some recent results that construct holomorphic $\text{sl}(2, \mathbb C)$-differential systems over some Riemann surfaces $\Sigma_g$ of genus $g\geq 2$, satisfying the condition that the image of…

Using a combinatorial argument, we prove the well-known result that the Wirtinger and Dehn presentations of a link in 3-space describe isomorphic groups. The result is not true for links $\ell$ in a thickened surface $S \times [0,1]$. Their…

Following the philosophy of arithmetic topology, we describe a point of view which helps look at surfaces and $p$-adic fields in a "uniform way", and show that results on mapping class groups can be extended to this point of view, and thus…

We describe the deformation cohomology of a symplectic groupoid, and use it to study deformations via Moser path methods, proving a symplectic groupoid version of the Moser Theorem. Our construction uses the deformation cohomologies of Lie…

Given a finite group $G$ acting on a surface $S$, the centralizer of G in the mapping class group $\textrm{Mod}(S)$ has a natural representation given by its action on the homology $H_1(S; \mathbb{Q})$. We consider the question of whether…

We study Dehn twists in the outer automorphism group of a finitely generated non-abelian free group. Our main result states that, under certain compatibility conditions, sufficiently large powers of finitely many Dehn twists generate a…

We prove that various subgroups of the mapping class group $Mod(\Sigma)$ of a surface $\Sigma$ are at least exponentially distorted. Examples include the Torelli group (answering a question of Hamenstadt), the "point-pushing" and surface…

Let $\operatorname{Aut}(H_1(N_g;\mathbb Z_2),\cdot )$ be the group of automorphisms on the first homology group with $\mathbb Z_2$ coefficient of a closed non-orientable surface $N_g$ preserving the mod $2$ intersection form. In this paper,…

We give a new technique for constructing presentations by generators and relations for representations of groups like $SL_n(\mathbb{Z})$ and $Sp_{2g}(\mathbb{Z})$. Our results play an important role in recent work of the authors calculating…

We give a small generating set for the twist subgroup of the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface by Dehn twists. The difference between the number of the generators and a lower bound of numbers of generators for the twist…

Let $S_g$ denote a closed, orientable surface of genus $g \geq 2$ and $\mathcal{C}(S_g)$ be the associated curve complex. The mapping class group of $S_g$, $Mod(S_g)$ acts on $\mathcal{C}(S_g)$ by isometries. Since Dehn twists about certain…

The SL(3,C)-representation variety R of a free group F arises naturally by considering surface group representations for a surface with boundary. There is a SL(3,C)-action on the coordinate ring of R. The geometric points of the subring of…

Let $\Gamma$ be a finite-index subgroup of the mapping class group of a closed genus $g$ surface that contains the Torelli group. For instance, $\Gamma$ can be the level $L$ subgroup or the spin mapping class group. We show that…

In this paper, we consider certain descending filtrations of the $\mathrm{SL}(m,\C)$-representation algebras of free groups and free abelian groups. By using it, we introduce analogs of the Johnson homomorphisms of the automorphism groups…

Let $p \colon Y \to X$ be a finite, regular cover of finite graphs with associated deck group $G$, and consider the first homology $H_1(Y;\mathbb{C})$ of the cover as a $G$-representation. The main contribution of this article is to broaden…

From a simple observation about a construction of Thurston, we derive several interesting facts about subgroups of the mapping class group generated by two positive multi-twists. In particular, we identify all configurations of curves for…