Related papers: Linearity of some low-complexity mapping class gro…

Irreducible Artin groups of finite type can be parametrized via their associated Coxeter diagrams into six sporadic examples and four infinite families, each of which is further parametrized by the natural numbers. Within each of these four…

S. Bigelow proved that the braid groups are linear. That is, there is a faithful representation of the braid group into the general linear group of some field. Using this, we deduce from previously known results that the mapping class group…

We show that the pure mapping class group is uniformly perfect for a certain class of infinite type surfaces with noncompact boundary components. We then combine this result with recent work in the remaining cases to give a complete…

We prove that if g and n are integers at least two, then the abstract commensurator of the braid group with n strands on a closed orientable surface of genus g is naturally isomorphic to the extended mapping class group of a compact…

We prove that many normal subgroups of the extended mapping class group of a surface with punctures are geometric, that is, that their automorphism groups and abstract commensurator groups are isomorphic to the extended mapping class group.…

It is shown, that the mapping class group of a surface of the genus g > 1 admits a faithful representation into the matrix group GL (6g-6, Z). The proof is based on a categorical correspondence between the Riemann surfaces and the so-called…

We classify representations of the mapping class group of a surface of genus $g$ (with at most one puncture or boundary component) up to dimension $3g-3$. Any such representation is the direct sum of a representation in dimension $2g$ or…

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…

Artin groups of finite type are not as well understood as braid groups. This is due to the additional geometric properties of braid groups coming from their close connection to mapping class groups. For each Artin group of finite type, we…

Consider an oriented compact surface F of positive genus, possibly with boundary, and a finite set P of punctures in the interior of F, and define the punctured mapping class group of F relatively to P to be the group of isotopy classes of…

It is a classical result of Powell that pure mapping class groups of connected, orientable surfaces of finite type and genus at least three are perfect. In stark contrast, we construct nontrivial homomorphisms from infinite-genus mapping…

A left orderable completely metrizable topological group is exhibited containing Artin's braid group on infinitely many strands. The group is the mapping class group (rel boundary) of the closed unit disk with a sequence of interior…

We find finite presentations for the automorphism group of the Artin pure braid group and the automorphism group of the pure braid group associated to the full monomial group.

Let $N$ be a connected nonorientable surface of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures. Suppose that $g$ is odd and $g+n \geqslant 6$. We prove that the automorphism group of the complex of curves of $N$ is isomorphic to the mapping class group…

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 $n\leq 2g-1$,…

A planar pure braid consists of $n$ descending smooth arcs, each connecting a point on one horizontal line $\ell_{1}$ to a point on a horizontal line $\ell_{2}$, which is required to be directly below the first point. Two arcs are allowed…

In this paper we construct a faithful representation of the mapping class group of the genus two surface into a group of matrices over the complex numbers. Our starting point is the Lawrence-Krammer representation of the braid group B_n,…

Homology of braid groups and Artin groups can be related to the study of spaces of curves. We completely calculate the integral homology of the family of smooth curves of genus $g$ with one boundary component, that are double coverings of…

We show that the image of the pure braid group under the monodromy action on the homology of a cyclic covering of degree d of the projective line is an arithmetic group provided the number of branch points is sufficiently large compared to…

There exist right angled Artin groups $A$ such that the isomorphism problem for finitely presented subgroups of $A$ is unsolvable, and for certain finitely presented subgroups the conjugacy and membership problems are unsolvable. It follows…