Related papers: Artin presentations, triangle groups, and 4-manifo…
We solve the isomorphism problem for braid groups on trees with $n = 4$ or 5 strands. We do so in three main steps, each of which is interesting in its own right. First, we establish some tools and terminology for dealing with computations…
The fundamental quandle is an invariant for distinguishing surface knots, yet computable presentations have traditionally been limited to surfaces embedded in the $4$-sphere. Building on the framework of banded unlink diagrams introduced by…
We define and study extensions of Artin's representation and braid monodromy representation to the case of topological and algebraical generalisations of braid groups. In particular we provide faithful representations of braid groups of…
In this paper we investigate properties of the Artin monoid Cayley graph. This is the Cayley graph of an Artin group $A_\Gamma$ with respect to the (infinite) generating set given by the associated Artin monoid $A^+_\Gamma$. In a previous…
The present paper is devoted to present a unifying survey about some special classes of crystallizations of compact PL $4$-manifolds with empty or connected boundary, called {\it semi-simple} and {\it weak semi-simple crystallizations},…
We construct a family of infinite simple groups that we call \emph{twisted Brin-Thompson groups}, generalizing Brin's higher-dimensional Thompson groups $sV$ ($s\in\mathbb{N}$). We use twisted Brin-Thompson groups to prove a variety of…
We introduce multisections of smooth, closed 4-manifolds, which generalize trisections to decompositions with more than three pieces. This decomposition describes an arbitrary smooth, closed 4-manifold as a sequence of cut systems on a…
A compact oriented 4-manifold is defined to be of ``superconformal simple type'' if certain polynomials in the basic classes (constructed using the Seiberg-Witten invariants) vanish identically. We show that all known 4-manifolds of…
Sometime ago, we showed that a pure Artin braid group is not K\"ahler, i.e. it is not the fundamental group of a compact K\"ahler manifold. This used a result of Bressler, Ramachandran and the author that K\"ahler groups cannot be too…
We give a finite presentation for the braid twist group of a decorated surface. If the decorated surface arises from a triangulated marked surface without punctures, we obtain a finite presentation for the spherical twist group of the…
We consider the problem of deciding if a group is the fundamental group of a smooth connected complex quasi-projective (or projective) variety using Alexander-based invariants. In particular, we solve the problem for large families of…
A cyclic presentation of a group is a presentation with an equal number of generators and relators that admits a particular cyclic symmetry. We characterise the orientable, non-orientable, and redundant cyclic presentations and obtain…
We give a uniform construction that, on input of a recursive presentation $P$ of a group, outputs a recursive presentation of a torsion-free group, isomorphic to $P$ whenever $P$ is itself torsion-free. We use this to re-obtain a known…
In this paper we give new presentations of the braid groups and the pure braid groups of a closed surface. We also give an algorithm to solve the word problem in these groups, using the given presentations.
A combinatorial property of prositive group presentations, called completeness, is introduced, with an effective criterion for recognizing complete presentations, and an iterative method for completing an incomplete presentation. We show…
We prove that an Artin-Tits group of type $\tilde C$ is the group of fractions of a Garside monoid, analogous to the known dual monoids associated with Artin-Tits groups of spherical type and obtained by the "generated group" method. This…
Trivalent $2$-stratifolds are a generalization of $2$-manifolds in that there are disjoint simple closed curves where three sheets meet. We obtain a classification of $1$-connected $2$-stratifolds in terms of their associated labeled graphs…
This article is a survey on the braid groups, the Artin groups, and the Garside groups. It is a presentation, accessible to non-experts, of various topological and algebraic aspects of these groups. It is also a report on three points of…
The goal of this book is to characterize algebraically the closed 4-manifolds that fibre nontrivially or admit geometries in the sense of Thurston, or which are obtained by surgery on 2-knots, and to provide a reference for the topology of…
This is an updated version of ANT-0253. Let F be a number field with absolute Galois group G. We associate, to each continuous, solvable C-representation of G of GO(4)-type, an automorphic form P of GL(4)/F with the same L-function. As a…