Related papers: Separating subgroups of mapping class groups in ho…

We study the mapping class group of a nontrivial irreducible shift of finite type: the group of flow equivalences of its mapping torus modulo isotopy. This group plays for flow equivalence the role that the automorphism group plays for…

We give a proof, based on thermodynamic formalism, of a theorem in bounded cohomology extending a foundational result of Burger and Monod: if $\Gamma$ is an irreducible uniform lattice in a non-compact connected semisimple Lie group of real…

The distinguishing index $D'(\Gamma)$ of a graph $\Gamma$ is the least number $k$ such that $\Gamma$ has an edge-coloring with $k$ colors preserved only by the trivial automorphism. In this paper we prove that if the automorphism group of a…

Let $\C(\Gamma)$ be the set of isomorphism classes of the finite groups that are homomorphic images of $\Gamma$. We investigate the extent to which $\C(\Gamma)$ determines $\Gamma$ when $\Gamma$ is a group of geometric interest. If…

Let $\Gamma$ be a finite graph, and for each vertex $i$ let $G_i$ be a finitely presented group. Let $G$ be the graph product of the $G_i$. That is, $G$ is the group obtained from the free product of the $G_i$ by factoring out by the…

We consider the problem of whether, for a given virtually torsionfree discrete group $\Gamma$, there exists a cocompact proper topological $\Gamma$-manifold, which is equivariantly homotopy equivalent to the classifying space for proper…

There is a natural stratification of the character variety of a finitely presented group coming from the jumping loci of the first cohomology of one-dimensional representations. Equations defining the jumping loci can be effectively…

We compute the homology of the matching complex $M(\Gamma)$, where $\Gamma$ is the complete hypergraph on $n\geq 2$ vertices, and analyse the $S_n$-representations carried by this homology. These results are achieved using standard…

We show that the closure of the compactly supported mapping class group of an infinite type surface is not perfect and that its abelianization contains a direct summand isomorphic to an uncountable direct sum of rationals. We also extend…

The main results in this thesis deal with the representation growth of certain classes of groups. In chapter $1$ we present the required preliminary theory. In chapter $2$ we introduce the Congruence Subgroup Problem for an algebraic group…

Carlson and Toledo conjectured that any infinite fundamental group $\Gamma$ of a compact K\"ahler manifold satisfies $H^2(\Gamma,\R)\not =0$. We assume that $\Gamma$ admits an unbounded reductive rigid linear representation. This…

Let $\Sigma$ be a surface with either boundary or marked points, equipped with an arbitrary framing. In this note we determine the action of the associated "framed mapping class group" on the homology of $\Sigma$ relative to its boundary…

The observation that a graph of rank $n$ can be assembled from graphs of smaller rank $k$ with $s$ leaves by pairing the leaves together leads to a process for assembling homology classes for $Out(F_n)$ and $Aut(F_n)$ from classes for…

Let $\Gamma$ be a discrete subgroup of a simply connected, solvable Lie group~$G$, such that $\Ad_G\Gamma$ has the same Zariski closure as $\Ad G$. If $\alpha \colon \Gamma \to \GL_n(\real)$ is any finite-dimensional representation…

Mapping class groups of Haken 3-manifolds enjoy many of the homological finiteness properties of mapping class groups of 2-manifolds of finite type. For example, H(M) has a torsionfree subgroup of finite index, which is geometrically finite…

Let $\Gamma$ be the mapping class group of an oriented surface $\Sigma$ of genus g with r boundary components. We prove that the first cohomology group $H^1(\Gamma, O(M_{SL(2, C)})^*)$ is non-trivial, where the coefficient module is the…

We prove explicit and elementary formulas for the group homology and cohomology of a finite group with coefficients in any module. We describe in elementary terms the cohomology algebra $H^*(G,k)$ as a graded algebra for a finite group $G$…

We start with a small paradigm shift about group representations, namely the observation that restriction to a subgroup can be understood as an extension-of-scalars. We deduce that, given a group $G$, the derived and the stable categories…

A group $G$ admits an \textbf{\em $n$-partite digraphical representation} if there exists a regular $n$-partite digraph $\Gamma$ such that the automorphism group $\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)$ of $\Gamma$ satisfies the following properties:…

A real representation $\pi$ of a finite group may be regarded as a homomorphism to an orthogonal group $\Or(V)$. For symmetric groups $S_n$, alternating groups $A_n$, and products $S_n \times S_{n'}$ of symmetric groups, we give criteria…