Related papers: Surface Homeomorphisms That Do Not Extend to Any H…

Associated to every complete affine 3-manifold M with nonsolvable fundamental group is a noncompact hyperbolic surface S. We classify such complete affine structures when Sigma is homeomorphic to a three-holed sphere. In particular, for…

Understanding non-Haken 3-manifolds is central to many current endeavors in 3-manifold topology. We describe some results for closed orientable surfaces in non-Haken manifolds, and extend Fox's theorem for submanifolds of the 3-sphere to…

We construct algebraic families of exotic affine 3-spheres, that is, smooth affine threefolds diffeomorphic to a non-degenerate smooth complex affine quadric of dimension 3 but non algebraically isomorphic to it. We show in particular that…

We examine the Johnson filtration of the (outer) automorphism group of a finitely generated group. In the case of a free group, we find a surprising result: the first Betti number of the second subgroup in the Johnson filtration is finite.…

We consider the group of isotopy classes of automorphisms of the 3-sphere that preserve a spatial graph or a handlebody-knot embedded in it. We prove that the group is finitely presented for an arbitrary spatial graph or a reducible…

We complete the classification of smooth surfaces swept out by a 1-dimensional family of plane curves that do not form a fibration. As a consequence, we characterize manifolds swept out by a 1-dimensional family of hypersurfaces that do not…

We consider the rational vector space generated by all rational homology spheres up to orientation-preserving homeomorphism, and the filtration defined on this space by Lagrangian-preserving rational homology handlebody replacements. We…

We show that any isomorphism between mapping class groups of orientable infinite-type surfaces is induced by a homeomorphism between the surfaces. Our argument additionally applies to automorphisms between finite-index subgroups of these…

We prove that any triangulation of a surface different from the sphere and the projective plane admits an orientation without sinks such that every vertex has outdegree divisible by three. This confirms a conjecture of Bar\'at and Thomassen…

Let $f\colon M\to N$ be a proper map between two aspherical compact orientable 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary. We assume that $N$ is not a closed graph-manifold. Suppose that $f$ induces an epimorphism on fundamental groups. We…

We introduce a class of one-ended open 3-manifolds which can be `recursively' defined from two compact 3-manifolds, and construct examples of manifolds in this class which fail to have a toric decomposition in the sense of Jaco-Shalen and…

We show that except for one exceptional case, a lamination on the boundary of a 3-dimensional handlebody H is a Hausdorff limit of meridians if and only if it is commensurable to a lamination with a 'homoclinic leaf'. This is a precise…

The Johnson kernel is the subgroup of the mapping class group of a closed oriented surface that is generated by Dehn twists along separating simple closed curves. The rational abelianization of the Johnson kernel has been computed by Dimca,…

We classify topological $4$-manifolds with boundary and fundamental group $\mathbb{Z}$, under some assumptions on the boundary. We apply this to classify surfaces in simply-connected $4$-manifolds with $S^3$ boundary, where the fundamental…

We show that mapping class groups of surfaces of genus at least two contain elements of infinite order that are not conjugate to their inverses, but whose powers have bounded torsion lengths. In particular every homogeneous…

Proving a conjecture of Dennis Johnson, we show that the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group has a finite generating set whose size grows cubically with respect to the genus of the surface. Our main tool is a new space called the…

We prove that any compact, orientable 3-manifold with empty or toral boundary is profinitely almost rigid among all compact, orientable 3-manifolds. In other words, the profinite completion of its fundamental group determines its…

We study injective homomorphisms between big mapping class groups of infinite-type surfaces. First, we construct (uncountably many) examples of surfaces without boundary whose (pure) mapping class groups are not co-Hopfian; these are the…

Let $S$ be an orientable, connected surface with infinitely-generated fundamental group. The main theorem states that if the genus of $S$ is finite and at least 4, then the isomorphism type of the pure mapping class group associated to $S$,…

For the oriented 3-dimensional handlebody constructed from a 3-ball by attaching g 1-handles, it is shown that the natural surjection from the group of orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of it to the mapping class group of it has no…