Related papers: Generating the Goeritz group of $S^3$
For each integer k > 1, Johnson gave a 3-manifold with Heegaard splittings of genera 2k and 2k-1 such that any common stabilization of these two surfaces has genus at least 3k-1. We modify his argument to produce a 3-manifold with two…
We show that the twist subgroup $\mathcal{T}_g$ of a nonorientable surface of genus $g$ can be generated by two elements for every odd $g\geq27$ and even $g\geq42$. Using these generators, we can also show that $\mathcal{T}_g$ can be…
The Torelli group of a genus $g$ oriented surface $S_g$ is the subgroup $\mathcal{I}_g$ of the mapping class group $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ consisting of all mapping classes that act trivially on the homology of $S_g$. One of the most intriguing…
The PLR-moves of neo-Riemannian theory, when considered as reflections on the edges of an equilateral triangle, define the Coxeter group $\widetilde S_3$. The elements are in a natural one-to-one correspondence with the triangles in the…
We use a Heegaard splitting of the topological 3-sphere as a guiding principle to construct a family of its noncommutative deformations. The main technical point is an identification of the universal C*-algebras defining our quantum…
A natural generating set for a Galois extension regarded as the splitting field of an irreducible polynomial is introduced and investigated here. Minimal generating sets arising in this context throw many surprises compared to the analogous…
Since Henrik Strietz's 1975 paper proving that the lattice Part($n$) of all partitions of an $n$-element finite set is four-generated, more than half a dozen papers have been devoted to four-element generating sets of this lattice. We prove…
Every finite simple group can be generated by two elements, and in 2000, Guralnick and Kantor resolved a 1962 question of Steinberg by proving that in a finite simple group every nontrivial element belongs to a generating pair. Groups with…
We show that the mapping class group of a closed oriented surface of genus at least three is generated by 3 elements of order 3 and by 4 elements of order 4. Note that the mapping class group cannot be generated by finitely many torsion…
Let $\Sigma_g^b$ be a compact oriented surface of genus $g$ with $b$ boundary components, where $b\in\{0,1\}$. The Johnson kernel $\mathcal{K}_g^b$ is the subgroup of the mapping class group $\mathrm{Mod}(\Sigma_g^b)$ generated by Dehn…
Let ${\mathcal H}$ be the group of isotopy classes of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of $S^3$ that preserve a Heegaard splitting of genus two. In this paper, we use a tree in the barycentric subdivision of the disk complex of a…
We prove that if $L=\mbox{}^2F_4(2^{2n+1})'$ and $x$ is a nonidentity automorphism of $L$ then $G=\langle L,x\rangle$ has four elements conjugate to $x$ that generate $G$. This result is used to study the following conjecture about the…
We give uniform formulas for the number of full reflection factorizations of a parabolic quasi-Coxeter element in a Weyl group or complex reflection group, generalizing the formula for the genus-0 Hurwitz numbers. This paper is the…
We show that for any integer $n\geq2$ there is a smooth complex projective variety $X$ of dimension $5$ whose third Griffiths group $\text{Griff}^{3}(X)$ contains infinitely many torsion elements of order $n$. This generalises a recent…
In this short note we prove that, if $p$ is an odd prime dividing the order of a sporadic simple group, then with the exception of four groups for $p=3$, all sporadic simple groups are generated by an involution and an element of order $p$.
We prove a natural generalization of Szep's conjecture. Given an almost simple group $G$ with socle not isomorphic to an orthogonal group having Witt defect zero, we classify all possible group elements $x,y\in G\setminus\{1\}$ with $G={\bf…
It is known that the number of homomorphisms from a group $F$ to a group $G$ is divisible by the greatest common divisor of the order of $G$ and the exponent of $F/[F,F]$. We investigate the number of homomorphisms satisfying some natural…
A $(g, n)$-decomposition of a link $L$ in a closed orientable $3$-manifold $M$ is a decomposition of $M$ by a closed orientable surface of genus $g$ into two handebodies each intersecting the link $L$ in $n$ trivial arcs. The Goeritz group…
Given an irreducible well-generated complex reflection group W with Coxeter number h, we call a Coxeter element any regular element (in the sense of Springer) of order h in W; this is a slight extension of the most common notion of Coxeter…
The open book decompositions of the 3-sphere whose pages are pairs of pants have been fully understood for some time, through the lens of contact geometry. The purpose of this note is to exhibit a purely topological derivation of the…