Related papers: The Johnson homomorphism and its kernel
We study the first homology group of the mapping class group and Torelli group with coefficients in the first rational homology group of the universal abelian cover of the surface. We prove two contrasting results: for surfaces with one…
One way to better understand the smooth mapping class group of the 4-sphere would be to give a list of generators in the form of explicit diffeomorphisms supported in neighborhoods of submanifolds, in analogy with Dehn twists on surfaces.…
Johnson showed that the normal subgroup of a mapping class group generated by the genus $1$ bounding pair maps is equal to the Torelli group. Generalizing Johnson's result, we give two descriptions of the normal subgroup generated by the…
Minahan and the author recently proved results that allow the calculation of the second rational cohomology group of the Torelli group. This builds on two key ingredients: Hain's calculation of the image of the cup product pairing on the…
For k >= 1, let Torelli_g^1(k) be the k-th term in the Johnson filtration of the mapping class group of a genus g surface with one boundary component. We prove that for all k, there exists some G_k >= 0 such that Torelli_g^1(k) is generated…
We first develop a general theory of Johnson filtrations and Johnson homomorphisms for a group $G$ acting on another group $K$ equipped with a filtration indexed by a "good" ordered commutative monoid. Then, specializing it to the case…
Let $(X ,x_0)$ be a pointed smooth proper variety defined over an algebraically closed field. The Albanese morphism for $(X ,x_0)$ produces a homomorphism from the abelianization of the $F$-divided fundamental group scheme of $X$ to the…
These are the lecture notes for my course at the 2011 Park City Mathematics Graduate Summer School. The first two lectures covered the basics of the Torelli group and the Johnson homomorphism, and the third and fourth lectures discussed the…
We construct a series of homomorphisms from the $Y$-filtration on the monoid of homology cylinders to torsion modules via the mod $\mathbb{Z}$ reduction of the LMO functor. The restriction of our homomorphism to the lower central series of…
In this paper, we study the Johnson homomorphisms of basis-conjugating automorphism groups of free groups. We construct obstructions for the surjectivity of the Johnson homomorphisms. By using it, we determine its cokernels of degree up to…
We introduce machinery to allow ``cut-and-paste''-style inductive arguments in the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group. In the past these arguments have been problematic because restricting the Torelli group to subsurfaces gives…
The Chillingworth subgroup of the mapping class group of a compact oriented surface of genus $g$ with one boundary component is defined as the subgroup whose elements preserve nonvanishing vector fields on the surface up to homotopy. In…
We introduce two Torelli subgroups of the handlebody group. The group $HI_{g,p}^b$ is the subgroup of the handlebody group acting trivially on the first homology of the boundary surface, and $H_B I_{g,p}^b$ is the subgroup of the handlebody…
Let M be a closed surface other than the sphere or projective plane. Goldberg defined a natural homomorphism from the n-stranded pure braid group of M to the n-fold product of the fundamental group of M and showed that the kernel of the…
For a oriented genus g surface with one boundary component, S, the Torelli group is the group of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of S that induce the identity on homology. The Magnus representation of the Torelli group represents the…
We prove that every term of the lower central series and Johnson filtrations of the Torelli subgroups of the mapping class group and the automorphism group of a free group is finitely generated in a linear stable range. This was originally…
In this paper, we construct an infinite presentation of the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group of a surface whose generators consist of the set of all "separating twists", all "bounding pair maps", and all "commutators of simply…
Let F_n be the free group on n generators. Define IA_n to be group of automorphisms of F_n that act trivially on first homology. The Johnson homomorphism in this setting is a map from IA_n to its abelianization. The first goal of this paper…
We provide some language for algebraic study of the mapping class groups for surfaces with non-connected boundary. As applications, we generalize our previous results on Dehn twists to any compact connected oriented surfaces with non-empty…
The Magnus representation of the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group of a surface is a homomorphism r: I_{g,1} -> GL_{2g}(Z[H]). Here H is the first homology group of the surface. This representation is not faithful; in particular,…