Related papers: Homomorphisms into mapping class groups. An addend…

We refine the construction of quasi-homomorphisms on mapping class groups. It is useful to know that there are unbounded quasi-homomorphisms which are bounded when restricted to particular subgroups since then one deduces that the mapping…

This paper deals with graph automaton groups associated with trees and some generalizations. We start by showing some algebraic properties of tree automaton groups. Then we characterize the associated semigroup, proving that it is…

We construct an example of a Peano continuum $X$ such that: (i) $X$ is a one-point compactification of a polyhedron; (ii) $X$ is weakly homotopy equivalent to a point (i.e. $\pi_n(X)$ is trivial for all $n \geq 0$); (iii) $X$ is…

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 prove triviality of the centre of arbitrary Hecke algebras of irreducible non-finite non-affine type. This result is obtained as a consequence of the following structure result for conjugacy classes of the underlying Coxeter groups. If…

We construct the first example of a finitely generated group which has Serre's property (FA) (i.e., whenever it acts on a simplicial tree it fixes a vertex), but admits a fixed point-free action on an $\mathbb{R}$-tree with finite arc…

A group is boundedly acyclic if its bounded cohomology with trivial real coefficients vanishes in all positive degrees. Amenable groups are boundedly acyclic, while the first non-amenable examples were the group of compactly supported…

The operation of switching a graph $\Gamma$ with respect to a subset $X$ of the vertex set interchanges edges and non-edges between $X$ and its complement, leaving the rest of the graph unchanged. This is an equivalence relation on the set…

The disjoint union of mapping class groups of surfaces forms a braided monoidal category $\mathcal M$, as the disjoint union of the braid groups $\mathcal B$ does. We give a concrete, and geometric meaning of the braiding $\beta_{r,s}$ in…

We apply results proved in [Li19] to the linear order expansions of non-trivial free homogeneous structures and the universal n-linear order for $n\geq 2$, and prove the simplicity of their automorphism groups.

We initiate the study of affine actions of groups on $\Lambda$-trees for a general ordered abelian group $\Lambda$; these are actions by dilations rather than isometries. This gives a common generalisation of isometric action on a…

A group is boundedly simple if, for some constant N, every nontrivial conjugacy class generates the whole group in N steps. For a large class of trees, Tits proved simplicity of a canonical subgroup of the automorphism group, which is…

Recently, John Franks and Michael Handel proved that, for $g\geq 3$ and $n\leq 2g-4$, every homomorphism from the mapping class group of an orientable surface of genus $g$ to $\GL (n,\C)$ is trivial. We extend this result to $n\leq 2g-1$,…

The cohomology of the degree-$n$ general linear group over a finite field of characteristic $p$, with coefficients also in characteristic $p$, remains poorly understood. For example, the lowest degree previously known to contain nontrivial…

This is a report on our long term project to find an algorithm to decide if a finitely presented group has a non-trivial action on a tree.

We relate endotrivial representations of a finite group in characteristic p to equivariant line bundles on the simplicial complex of non-trivial p-subgroups, by means of weak homomorphisms.

The observation that a graph of rank $n$ can be assembled from graphs of smaller rank $k$ with $s$ leaves by pairing the leaves together leads to a process for assembling homology classes for $Out(F_n)$ and $Aut(F_n)$ from classes for…

This work presents the conjugacy classes of finite abelian subgroups of the Cremona group of the plane. Using a well-known theory, this problem amounts to the study of automorphism groups of some Del Pezzo surfaces and conic bundles. We…

We classify all finite-dimensional connected Hopf algebras with large abelian primitive spaces. We show that they are Hopf algebra extensions of restricted enveloping algebras of certain restricted Lie algebras. For any abelian matched pair…

In this paper, we classify homomorphisms from the braid group of $n$ strands to the mapping class group of a genus $g$ surface. In particular, we show that when $g<n-2$, all representations are either cyclic or standard. Our result is sharp…