Related papers: Garside theory and subsurfaces: some examples in b…

We prove that the Garside length a braid is equal to a winding-number type invariant of the curve diagram of the braid.

Let n\geq 3. We classify the finite groups which are realised as subgroups of the sphere braid group B_n(S^2). Such groups must be of cohomological period 2 or 4. Depending on the value of n, we show that the following are the maximal…

We develop the Witt group for certain braided monoidal categories with duality. In case of a braided fusion category over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero, we explicitly describe this structure. We then use this…

We expound the properties of ribbons in a setting which is general enough to encompass spherical Artin monoids and dual braid monoids of well-generated complex reflection groups. We generalize to our setting results on parabolic subgroups…

In the present paper, we introduce $\mathbb{Z}_2$-braids and, more generally, $G$-braids for an arbitrary group $G$. They form a natural group-theoretic counterpart of $G$-knots, see \cite{reidmoves}. The underlying idea, used in the…

We construct ribbon surfaces of Euler characteristic one for several infinite families of alternating 3-braid closures. We also use a twisted Alexander polynomial obstruction to conclude the classification of smoothly slice knots which are…

We show several geometric and algebraic aspects of a necklace: a link composed with a core circle and a series of circles linked to this core. We first prove that the fundamental group of the configuration space of necklaces (that we will…

Given a graph, the sparsest cut problem asks for a subset of vertices whose edge expansion (the normalized cut given by the subset) is minimized. In this paper, we study a generalization of this problem seeking for $ k $ disjoint subsets of…

Let G be a chordal graph, X(G) the complement of the associated complex arrangement and Gamma(G) the fundamental group of X(G). We show that Gamma(G) is a limit of colored braid groups over the poset of simplices of G. When G = G_T is the…

We give a systematic exposition of memory-length algorithms for solving equations in noncommutative groups. This exposition clarifies some points untouched in earlier expositions. We then focus on the main ingredient in these attacks:…

We derive a lower bound on the size of finite non-cyclic quotients of the braid group that is superexponential in the number of strands. We also derive a similar lower bound for nontrivial finite quotients of the commutator subgroup of the…

We show that branched coverings of surfaces of large enough genus arise as characteristic maps of braided surfaces that is, lift to embeddings in the product of the surface with $\mathbb R^2$. This result is nontrivial already for…

We classify homomorphisms from the braid group on $n$ strands to the pure mapping class group of a nonoriantable surface of genus $g$. For $n\ge 14$ and $g\le 2\lfloor{n/2}\rfloor+1$ every such homomorphism is either cyclic, or it maps…

Let $\beta:=\sigma_1\sigma_2^{-1}$ be a braid in $B_3$, where $B_3$ is the braid group on 3 strings and $\sigma_1, \sigma_2$ are the standard Artin generators. We use Gauss diagram formulas to show that for each natural number $n$ not…

It is well known that the existence of a braiding in a monoidal category V allows many structures to be built upon that foundation. These include a monoidal 2-category V-Cat of enriched categories and functors over V, a monoidal bicategory…

Given a knot or link in the form of plat closure of a braid, we describe an algorithm to obtain a braid representing the same knot or link with the standard closure, and vice-versa. We analyze the three cases of knots and links: in…

We consider finite-sheeted, regular, possibly branched covering spaces of compact surfaces with boundary and the associated liftable and symmetric mapping class groups. In particular, we classify when either of these subgroups coincides…

We introduce and investigate the ribbon groupoid associated with a Garside group. Under a technical hypothesis, we prove that this category is a Garside groupoid. We decompose this groupoid into a semi-direct product of two of its parabolic…

Clique-width is a well-studied graph parameter owing to its use in understanding algorithmic tractability: if the clique-width of a graph class ${\cal G}$ is bounded by a constant, a wide range of problems that are NP-complete in general…

We give a method to construct new self-adjoint representations of the braid group. In particular, we give a family of irreducible self-adjoint representations of dimension arbitrarily large. Moreover we give sufficient conditions for a…