Related papers: Non-realizability of the Torelli group as area-pre…

For a oriented genus g surface with one boundary component, S, the Torelli group is the group of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of S that induce the identity on homology. The Magnus representation of the Torelli group represents the…

This self-contained paper is part of a series \cite{FF2,FF3} on actions by diffeomorphisms of infinite groups on compact manifolds. The two main results presented here are: 1) Any homomorphism of (almost any) mapping class group or…

For any surface $\Sigma$ of genus $g \geq 1$ and (essentially) any collection of positive integers $i_1, i_2, \ldots, i_\ell$ with $i_1+\cdots +i_\ell = 4g-4$ Masur and Smillie have shown that there exists a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism…

Under the assumption that Galois representations associated to Siegel modular forms exist (it is known only for genus at most 2), we show that the cohomology with p-adic integral coefficients of Siegel Varieties, when localized at a…

We prove that, for any infinite-type surface $S$, the integral homology of the closure of the compactly-supported mapping class group $\overline{\mathrm{PMap}_c(S)}$ and of the Torelli group $\mathcal{T}(S)$ is uncountable in every positive…

We prove that a group homomorphism $\varphi\colon L\to G$ from a locally compact Hausdorff group $L$ into a discrete group $G$ either is continuous, or there exists a normal open subgroup $N\subseteq L$ such that $\varphi(N)$ is a torsion…

We introduce machinery to allow ``cut-and-paste''-style inductive arguments in the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group. In the past these arguments have been problematic because restricting the Torelli group to subsurfaces gives…

The main target of this thesis is to solve the Perron's conjecture. This conjecture affirms that some function on the mod p Torelli group, with values in Z/p, is an invariant of mod p homology 3-spheres. In order to solve this conjecture,…

We study an abstract group of reversible Turing machines. In our model, each machine is interpreted as a homeomorphism over a space which represents a tape filled with symbols and a head carrying a state. These homeomorphisms can only…

In this paper we formulate and prove a structure theorem for area preserving diffeomorphisms of genus zero surfaces with zero entropy. As an application we relate the existence of faithful actions of a finite index subgroup of the mapping…

We prove that various subgroups of the mapping class group $Mod(\Sigma)$ of a surface $\Sigma$ are at least exponentially distorted. Examples include the Torelli group (answering a question of Hamenstadt), the "point-pushing" and surface…

The topological symmetry group $\mathrm{TSG}(\Gamma)$ of an embedding $\Gamma$ of a graph in $S^3$ is the subgroup of the automorphism group of the graph which is induced by homeomorphisms of $(S^3,\Gamma)$. If we restrict to orientation…

This note studies the Burnside problem for homeomorphism groups of compact connected manifolds. For surfaces, we prove that the identity component of the homeomorphism group is torsion-free precisely when the surface is not the sphere,…

We investigate under which circumstances there exists nonzero {\it{projective}} smooth $\field[G]$-modules, where $\field$ is a field of characteristic $p$ and $G$ is a locally pro-$p$ group. We prove the non-existence of (non-trivial)…

We study $(\sigma,\tau)$-derivations of a group ring $RG$ where $G$ is a group with center having finite index in $G$ and $R$ is a semiprime ring with $1$ such that either $R$ has no torsion elements or that if $R$ has $p$-torsion elements,…

We study the Golomb spaces of Dedekind domains with torsion class group. In particular, we show that a homeomorphism between two such spaces sends prime ideals into prime ideals and preserves the $P$-adic topology on $R\setminus P$. Under…

The Torelli group of a manifold is the group of all diffeomorphisms which act as the identity on the homology of the manifold. In this paper, we calculate the invariant part (invariant under the action of the automorphisms of the homology)…

We study the homotopy theory of the classifying space of the complex projective linear groups to prove that purity fails for $PGL_p$-torsors on regular noetherian schemes when $p$ is a prime. Extending our previous work when $p=2$, we…

To every $Q$-irreducible representation $r$ of a finite group $H$, there corresponds a simple factor $A$ of $Q[H]$ with an involution $\tau$. To this pair $(A,\tau)$, we associate an arithmetic group $\Omega$ consisting of all $(2g-2)\times…

The Torelli group, I(S_g), is the subgroup of the mapping class group consisting of elements that act trivially on the homology of the surface. There are three types of elements that naturally arise in studying I(S_g): bounding pair maps,…