Related papers: A Polygonal Perspective of Nielsen Reduction and t…

The mapping class group of a genus $g$ surface $\Sigma_{g,1}$ with one boundary component is known to have a simple yet infinite presentation with generators given by elementary moves called Whitehead moves on so-called marked bordered…

The Ptolemy groupoid is a combinatorial groupoid generated by elementary moves on marked trivalent fatgraphs with three types of relations. Through the fatgraph decomposition of Teichm\"uller space, the Ptolemy groupoid is a mapping class…

We describe an algorithm that uses Stallings' folding technique to decompose an element of $Aut(F_n)$ as a product of Whitehead automorphisms (and hence as a product of Nielsen transformations.) We use this to give an alternative method of…

Let $ \text{Mod}(S_g)$ denote the mapping class group of the closed orientable surface $S_g$ of genus $g\geq 2$, and let $f\in \text{Mod}(S_g)$ be of finite order. We give an inductive procedure to construct an explicit hyperbolic structure…

The object of this expository work is to try to unveil the topological/geometric intuition behind the theory of free groups and their automorphism and outer automorphism groups. The method we follow is to focus on a series of problems in…

In this paper we discuss several heuristic strategies which allow one to solve the Whitehead's minimization problem much faster (on most inputs) than the classical Whitehead algorithm. The mere fact that these strategies work in practice…

Classical Clifford theory studies the decomposition of simple $G$-modules into simple $H$-modules for some normal subgroup $H \triangleleft G$. In this paper we deal with chains of normal subgroups $1 \triangleleft G_1 \triangleleft \cdots…

We describe a new algorithm for computing braid orbits on Nielsen classes. As an application we classify all families of affine genus zero systems; that is all families of coverings of the Riemann sphere by itself such that the monodromy…

We show the Teichm\"uller space of a non-orientable surface with marked points (considered as a Klein surface) can be identified with a subspace of the Teichm\"uller space of its orientable double cover. Also, it is well known that the…

Given a finite subgroup G of the mapping class group of a surface S, the Nielsen realization problem asks whether G can be realized as a finite group of homeomorphisms of S. In 1983, Kerckhoff showed that for S a finite-type surface, any…

We show that reducible braids which are, in a Garside-theoretical sense, as simple as possible within their conjugacy class, are also as simple as possible in a geometric sense. More precisely, if a braid belongs to a certain subset of its…

We consider finite group-actions on 3-manifolds $\cal H_g$ obtained as the connected sum of $g$ copies of $S^2 \times S^1$, with free fundamental group $F_g$ of rank $g$. We prove that, for $g > 1$, a finite group of diffeomorphisms of…

We prove that all nontrivial finite subgroups of derived automorphisms of K3 surfaces of Picard number one have order two and give formulas for the numbers of their conjugacy classes. We also obtain a similar result for the subgroups which…

Suppose X,Y are manifolds, f,g:X->Y are maps. The well-known Coincidence Problem studies the coincidence set C={x:f(x)=g(x)}. The number m=dimX-dimY is called the codimension of the problem. More general is the Preimage Problem. For a map…

We prove Nielsen realisation for finite subgroups of the groups of untwisted outer automorphisms of RAAGs in the following sense: given any graph $\Gamma$, and any finite group $G\leqslant \mathrm{U}^0(A_\Gamma) \leqslant…

The smooth (resp. metric and complex) Nielsen Realization Problem for K3 surfaces $M$ asks: when can a finite group $G$ of mapping classes of $M$ be realized by a finite group of diffeomorphisms (resp. isometries of a Ricci-flat metric, or…

Any permutation in the finite symmetric group can be written as a product of simple transpositions $s_i = (i~i+1)$. For a fixed permutation $\sigma \in \mathfrak{S}_n$ the products of minimal length are called reduced decompositions or…

Graph unlearning is tailored for GNNs to handle widespread and various graph structure unlearning requests, which remain largely unexplored. The GIF (graph influence function) achieves validity under partial edge unlearning, but faces…

For all n > 0 there is a homomorphism from the smooth concordance group of knots in dimension 2n + 1 to an algebraically defined group called the rational algebraic concordance group. This algebraic concordance group splits as a direct sum…

In this paper we study the Nielsen identity for the supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter model in the superfield formalism, in three spacetime dimensions. The Nielsen identity is essential to understand the gauge invariance of the symmetry…