Related papers: Forks, Noodles and the Burau representation for $n…
The Burau representation is a natural action of the braid group B_n on the free Z[t,t^{-1}]-module of rank n-1. It is a longstanding open problem to determine for which values of n this representation is faithful. It is known to be faithful…
The reduced Burau representation $V_n$ of the braid group $B_n$ is obtained from the action of $B_n$ on the homology of an infinite cyclic cover of the $n$-punctured disc. In this note, we calculate $H_*(B_n;V_n)$ as a module over the…
The reduced Burau representation $V_n$ of the braid group $B_n$ is obtained from the action of $B_n$ on the homology of an infinite cyclic cover of the disc with $n$ punctures. The group homology $H_*(B_n;V_n)$ of braid groups with…
We establish strong constraints on the kernel of the (reduced) Burau representation $\beta_4:B_4\to \text{GL}_3\left(\mathbb{Z}\left[q^{\pm 1}\right]\right)$ of the braid group $B_4$. We develop a theory to explicitly determine the entries…
The Burau representation enables to define many other representations of the braid group $B_n$ by the topological operation of ``cabling braids''. We show here that these representations split into copies of the Burau representation itself…
We give a method to produce faithful representations of the groups $G(n,m)=\langle X, Y \ \vert \ X^m = Y^n \rangle$ in $\mathrm{GL}_2(\mathbb{C}[t^{\pm 1}, q^{\pm 1}])$. These groups are Garside groups and the Garside normal forms of…
The problem of faithfulness of the (reduced) Burau representation for $n =4$ is known to be equivalent to the problem of whether certain two matrices $A$ and $B$ generate a free group of rank two. It is known that $A^3$ and $B^3$ generate a…
A long-standing open problem is to determine for which values of n the Burau representation Psi_n of the braid group B_n is faithful. Following work of Moody, Long-Paton, and Bigelow, the remaining open case is n = 4. One criterion states…
We discuss the extension of the faithfulness question for the Burau representation of braid groups to the case of Artin--Tits groups. We prove that the Burau representation is not faithful in affine type $\tilde{A_3}$, and not faithful over…
We give a simple topological construction of the Burau representations of the loop braid groups. There are four versions: defined either on the non-extended or extended loop braid groups, and in each case there is an unreduced and a reduced…
While much is known about the faithfulness of the Burau representation, the problem remains open for the Gassner representation for every $B_n$ with $n\geq 4$. We first find the definition of the Colored-Burau representation of Ainshel,…
We study the kernel of the evaluated Burau representation through the braid element $\sigma_i \sigma_{i+1} \sigma_i$. The element is significant as a part of the standard braid relation. We establish the form of this element's image raised…
We study two classical representations of Artin's braid group and their modulo $p$ reductions. We use topological methods to show that the Gassner representation $\tau_n: B_n\to\text{GL}_n(\mathbb{Z}[t_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots, t_n^{\pm 1}])$ is…
In this paper we survey some work on representations of $B_n$ given by the induced action on a homology module of some space. One of these, called the Lawrence-Krammer representation, recently came to prominence when it was shown to be…
We use a geometric approach to show that the reduced Burau representation specialized at roots of unity has another incarnation as the monodromy representation of a moduli space of Euclidean cone metrics on the sphere, as described by…
In this note, a new class of representations of the braid groups $B_{N}$ is constructed. It is proved that those representations contain three kinds of irreducible representations: the trivial (identity) one, the Burau one, and an…
The Burau representation is a fundamental bridge between the braid group and diverse other topics in mathematics. A 1974 question of Birman asks for a description of the image; in this paper we give a "strong approximation" to the answer.…
Virtual knots arise in the study of Gauss diagrams and Vassiliev invariants of usual knots. Virtual braids correspond naturally to virtual knots. We consider the group of virtual braids on n strings VB_n and its Burau representation, in…
This work discusses the open problem of the faithfulness of the reduced Burau representation for $n=4$. Birman showed that in order to prove this representation is faithful, it is sufficient to find two matrices $A$ and $B$ that generate a…
We investigate the cohomology of the level 4 subgroup of the braid group, namely, the kernel of the mod 4 reduction of the Burau representation at $t=-1$. This group is also equal to the kernel of the mod 2 abelianization of the pure braid…