Related papers: The first Johnson subgroups act ergodically on SU_…
We show that the mapping class group of a handlebody of genus at least 2 (with any number of marked points or spots) is exponentially distorted in the mapping class group of its boundary surface. The same holds true for solid tori with at…
We define trace-like operators on a subspace of the space of derivations of the free Lie algebra generated by the first homology group $H$ of a surface $\Sigma$. This definition depends on the choice of a Lagrangian of $H$, and we call…
We produce for each natural number $n \geq 3$ two 1--parameter families of Riemann surfaces admitting automorphism groups with two cyclic subgroups $H_{1}$ and $H_{2}$ of orden $2^{n}$, that are conjugate in the group of…
We prove a structure result on proper extensions of two-sided restriction semigroups in terms of partial actions, generalizing respective results for monoids and for inverse semigroups and upgrading the latter. We introduce and study…
We prove that rigid representations of the fundamental group of a surface into the group of oreintation-preserving homeomorphisms of the circle are geometric, thereby establishing a converse statement of a theorem by the first author.
Let k be a field of positive characteristic p and let G be a finite group. In this paper we study the category TsG of finitely generated commutative k-algebras A on which G acts by algebra automorphisms with surjective trace. If A = k[X],…
Jones introduced unitary representations for the Thompson groups $F$ and $T$ from a given subfactor planar algebra. Some interesting subgroups arise as the stabilizer of certain vector, in particular the Jones subgroups $\vec{F}$ and…
Johnson has defined a surjective homomorphism from the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group of the surface of genus $g$ with one boundary component to $\wedge^3 H$, the third exterior product of the homology of the surface. Morita…
The basic object of the paper is the moduli space $M_{2,3}(L)$ of a closed polygonal linkage either in $\mathbb{R}^2$ or in $\mathbb{R}^3$. As was originally suggested by G. Khimshiashvili, the space $M_{2}(L)$ is equipped with the oriented…
We consider the symplectic action of a finite group G on a K3 surface. The Picard group of the K3 surface has a primitive sublattice determined by G. We show how to compute the rank and discriminant of this sublattice. We then describe…
We survey recent work on the dynamics of the outer automorphism group of a word hyperbolic group on spaces of (conjugacy classes of) representations ofthe group into a semi-simple Lie group G. All these results are motivated by the fact…
For an isotropic reductive group G satisfying a suitable rank condition over an infinite field k, we show that the sections of the $\mathbb{A}^1$-fundamental group sheaf of G over an extension field L/k can be identified with the second…
The prepotential of N=2* supersymmetric theories with unitary gauge groups in an Omega-background satisfies a modular anomaly equation that can be recursively solved order by order in an expansion for small mass. By requiring that S-duality…
Based on results obtained in a companion paper [MSRI preprint 1997-002], we construct groups of special $S$--units for function fields of characteristic $p>0$, and show that they satisfy Gras--type Conjectures. We use these results in order…
In the present paper, we study the Sp-module structure of the cokernel of the Johnson homomorphism of the mapping class groups of surfaces. We detect the Sp-irreducible components with highest weight [1^k] (and [k]) in the cokernel. We also…
It is a well known result in the covering groups that a subgroup $G$ of the fundamental group at the identity of a semi-locally simply connected topological group determines a covering morphism of topological groups with characteristic…
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,…
We consider the moduli spaces of representations of the fundamental group of a surface of genus g greater than 2 in the Lie groups SU(2,2) and Sp(4,R). It is well known that there is a characteristic number of such a representation, whose…
We prove the rigidity of Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ and $\mathrm{SO}(3)$ quantum representations of mapping class groups at all prime levels for closed surfaces of genus at least $7$. The proof relies on Ocneanu rigidity of…
Let F be the function field of a curve over a p-adic field. Let D/F be a central division algebra of prime exponent $\ell$ which is different from p. Assume that F contains a primitive ${\ell}^2$-th root of unity. Then the group…