Related papers: A note on stable commutator length in braided Ptol…
For any group, there is a natural (pseudo-)norm on the vector space B1 of real (group) 1-boundaries, called the stable commutator length norm. This norm is closely related to, and can be thought of as a relative version of, the Gromov…
We show that the set $SCL^{rp}$ of stable commutator lengths on recursively presented groups equals the set of non-negative right-computable numbers. Hence all non-negative algebraic or computable numbers are in $SCL^{rp}$ and $SCL^{rp}$ is…
We study stable commutator length on free $\mathbb{Q}$-groups. We prove that every non-identity element has positive stable commutator length, and that the corresponding free group embeds isometrically. We deduce that a non-abelian free…
We show that stable commutator length is rational on free products of free Abelian groups amalgamated over $\mathbb{Z}^k$, a class of groups containing the fundamental groups of all torus knot complements. We consider a geometric model for…
Let $\Gamma$ be a finite index subgroup of the mapping class group $MCG(\Sigma)$ of a closed orientable surface $\Sigma$, possibly with punctures. We give a precise condition (in terms of the Nielsen-Thurston decomposition) when an element…
We define a quasihomomorphism from braid groups to the concordance group of knots and examine its properties and consequences of its existence. In particular, we provide a relation between the stable four ball genus in the concordance group…
We introduce stable reflection length in Coxeter groups, as a way to study the asymptotic behaviour of reflection length. This creates connections to other well-studied stable length functions in groups, namely stable commutator length and…
Let G be a subgroup of PL(I). Then the stable commutator length of every element of [G,G] is zero.
We give examples of finitely presented groups containing elements with irrational (in fact, transcendental) stable commutator length, thus answering in the negative a question of M. Gromov. Our examples come from 1-dimensional dynamics, and…
In this paper we obtain uniform positive lower bounds on stable commutator length in word-hyperbolic groups and certain groups acting on hyperbolic spaces (namely the mapping class group acting on the complex of curves, and an amalgamated…
We study stable commutator length on mapping class groups of certain infinite-type surfaces. In particular, we show that stable commutator length defines a continuous function on the commutator subgroups of such infinite-type mapping class…
The braided Ptolemy-Thompson group $T^*$ is an extension of the Thompson group $T$ by the full braid group $B_{\infty}$ on infinitely many strands. This group is a simplified version of the acyclic extension considered by Greenberg and…
Let G be a transitive group of permutations of a finite set X, and suppose that some element of G has at most two orbits on X. We prove that any two maximal chains of groups between G and a point-stabilizer of G have the same length, and…
We show that the stable commutator length vanishes for certain groups defined as infinite unions of smaller groups. The argument uses a group-theoretic analogue of the Mazur swindle, and goes back to the works of Anderson, Fisher, and…
We study the bounded cohomology and the stable commutator length of verbal wreath products $\Gamma \wr^{_W}A$, where $A$ has trivial bounded cohomology for a sufficiently large class of coefficients.\\ We prove that the stable commutator…
The Schreier graphs of Thompson's group F with respect to the stabilizer of 1/2 and generators x_0 and x_1, and of its unitary representation in L_2([0,1]) induced by the standard action on the interval [0,1] are explicitly described. The…
In a previous work [11], the author considered a representation of the braid group \rho: B_n\to GL_m(\Bbb Z[q^{\pm 1},t^{\pm 1}]) (m=n(n-1)/2), and proved it to be faithful for n=4. Bigelow [3] then proved the same representation to be…
We give an algorithm to compute stable commutator length in free products of cyclic groups which is polynomial time in the length of the input, the number of factors, and the orders of the finite factors. We also describe some experimental…
The stable torsion length in a group is the stable word length with respect to the set of all torsion elements. We show that the stable torsion length vanishes in crystallographic groups. We then give a linear programming algorithm to…
We investigate the rational cohomology of the quotient of (generalized) braid groups by the commutator subgroup of the pure braid groups. We provide a combinatorial description of it using isomorphism classes of certain families of graphs.…