Related papers: The mapping class group cannot be realized by home…

In this paper, we study Homeo$^1(S)$, the group of homeomorphisms of a surface that preserve the set of one-dimensional $C^1$ submanifolds of that surface. The group Homeo$^1(S)$ belongs to a family of similarly defined groups Homeo$^k(S)$…

Let S be a compact connected surface and let f be an element of the group Homeo\_0(S) of homeomorphisms of S isotopic to the identity. Denote by \tilde{f} a lift of f to the universal cover of S. Fix a fundamental domain D of this universal…

In this article, we construct a crystallization of the mapping torus of some (PL) homeomorphisms $f:M \to M$ for a certain class of PL-manifolds $M$. These yield upper bounds for gem-complexity and regular genus of a large class of…

Let $\textup{H}_g$ be a genus $g$ handlebody and $\textup{MCG}_{2n}(\textup{T}_g)$ be the group of the isotopy classes of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of $\textup{T}_g=\partial\textup{H}_g$, fixing a given set of $2n$ points. In…

Nielsen realization problem for the mapping class group $\text{Mod}(S_g)$ asks whether the natural projection $p_g: \text{Homeo}_+(S_g)\to \text{Mod}(S_g)$ has a section. While all the previous results use torsion elements in an essential…

We give a short, mostly elementary and self-contained proof of the classical result that the groups of diffeomorphisms, homeomorphisms, and homotopy equivalences of a surface have the same group of connected components.

A normal subgroup of the (extended) mapping class group of a surface is said to be geometric if its automorphism group is the mapping class group. We prove that in the case of the Cantor tree surface, every normal subgroup is geometric. We…

We show that the mapping class group of a closed oriented surface of genus at least three is generated by 3 elements of order 3 and by 4 elements of order 4. Note that the mapping class group cannot be generated by finitely many torsion…

An orientation-preserving branched covering map $f\colon S^2 \to S^2$ is called a critically fixed Thurston map if $f$ fixes each of its critical points. It was recently shown that there is an explicit one-to-one correspondence between…

A well-known conjecture asserts that the mapping class group of a surface (possibly with punctures/boundary) does not virtually surject onto $\Z$ if the genus of the surface is large. We prove that if this conjecture holds for some genus,…

The mapping class group ${\Gamma}_g^ 1$ of a closed orientable surface of genus $g \geq 1$ with one marked point can be identified, by the Nielsen action, with a subgroup of the group of orientation preserving homeomorphims of the circle.…

Building on the work of Mann and Rafi, we introduce an expanded definition of a telescoping 2-manifold and proceed to study the homeomorphism group of a telescoping 2-manifold. Our main result shows that it is strongly distorted. We then…

For $\Sigma$ an orientable surface of finite topological type having genus at least 3 (possibly closed or possibly with any number of punctures or boundary components), we show that the mapping class group $Mod(\Sigma)$ has no faithful…

Let $M$ be a manifold, $N$ a 1-dimensional manifold. Assuming $r \neq \dim(M)+1$, we show that any nontrivial homomorphism $\rho: \text{Diff}^r_c(M)\to \text{Homeo}(N)$ has a standard form: necessarily $M$ is $1$-dimensional, and there are…

A complex of incompressible surfaces in a handlebody is constructed so that it contains, as a subcomplex, the complex of curves of the boundary of the handlebody. For genus 2 handlebodies, the group of automorphisms of this complex is used…

We are concerned with mapping class groups of surfaces with nonempty boundary. We present a very natural method, due to Thurston, of finding many different left orderings of such groups. The construction involves equipping the surface with…

We classify pairs $(M,G)$ where $M$ is a $3$--dimensional simply connected smooth manifold and $G$ a Lie group acting on $M$ transitively, effectively with compact isotropy group.

Let $S$ be a closed oriented surface and $G$ a finite group of orientation preserving automorphisms of $S$ whose orbit space has genus at least $2$. There is a natural group homomorphism from the $G$-centralizer in $Diff^+(S)$ to the…

We investigate the mapping class group of an orientable $\omega$-bounded surface. Such a surface splits, by Nyikos's Bagpipe Theorem, into a union of a bag (a compact surface with boundary) and finitely many long pipes. The subgroup…

Any nontrivial homomorphism from the mapping class group of an orientable surface of genus $g\geq 3$ to $\GL(2g,\C)$ is conjugate to the standard symplectic representation. It is also shown that the mapping class group has no faithful…