Related papers: Big pure mapping class groups are never perfect
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 completely classify the orientable infinite-type surfaces $S$ such that $\operatorname{PMap}(S)$, the pure mapping class group, has automatic continuity. This classification includes surfaces with noncompact boundary. In the case of…
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 study the first homology group of the mapping class group and Torelli group with coefficients in the first rational homology group of the universal abelian cover of the surface. We prove two contrasting results: for surfaces with one…
For any infinite-type surface $S$, a natural question is whether the homology of its mapping class group contains any non-trivial classes that are supported on (i) a compact subsurface or (ii) a finite-type subsurface. Our purpose here is…
We study generic properties of topological groups in the sense of Baire category. First we investigate countably infinite (discrete) groups. We extend a classical result of B. H. Neumann, H. Simmons and A. Macintyre on algebraically closed…
We investigate the problem of when big mapping class groups are generated by involutions. Restricting our attention to the class of self-similar surfaces, which are surfaces with self-similar ends space, as defined by Mann and Rafi, and…
We prove that the mapping class group of a surface obtained from removing a Cantor set from either the 2-sphere, the plane, or the interior of the closed 2-disk has no proper countable-index subgroups. The proof is an application of the…
We show that the extended based mapping class group of an infinite-type surface is naturally isomorphic to the automorphism group of the loop graph of that surface. Additionally, we show that the extended mapping class group stabilizing a…
It is known that every torsion-free abelian group of finite rank has a maximal completely decomposable summand that is unique up to isomorphism. We show that groups of infinite rank need not have maximal completely decomposable summands,…
By considering appropriate finite covering spaces of closed non-orientable surfaces, we construct linear representations of their mapping class group which have finite index image in certain big arithmetic groups.
We study the large-scale geometry of mapping class groups of surfaces of infinite type, using the framework of Rosendal for coarse geometry of non locally compact groups. We give a complete classification of those surfaces whose mapping…
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…
We survey recent developments on mapping class groups of surfaces of infinite topological type.
Big mapping class groups are the mapping class groups of infinite-type surfaces, that is, surfaces whose fundamental groups are not finitely generated. While mapping class groups of finite-type surfaces have been extensively studied, the…
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…
We give an infinite presentation for the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface with boundary components. The presentation is a generalization of the presentation given by the second author [15].
Let $\Sigma$ be a surface whose interior admits a hyperbolic structure of finite volume. In this paper, we show that any infinite order mapping class acts with infinite order on the homology of some universal $k$--step nilpotent cover of…
We discuss the decomposability of torsion-free abelian groups. We show that among computable groups of finite rank this property is $\Sigma^0_3$-complete. However, when we consider groups of infinite rank, it becomes $\Sigma^1_1$-complete,…
We give an alternate proof of the left-orderability of the mapping class group of a connected oriented infinite-type surface with a non-empty boundary. Our main strategy involves the inductive construction of a countable stable Alexander…