Related papers: The mapping class group of connect sums of $S^2 \t…

This paper is about cohomology of mapping class groups from the perspective of arithmetic groups. For a closed surface $S$ of genus $g$, the mapping class group $Mod(S)$ admits a well-known arithmetic quotient $Mod(S)\rightarrow Sp(2g, Z)$,…

Let $p$ be a prime and let $\pi^n(X;\mathbb{Z}/p^r)=[X,M_n(\mathbb{Z}/p^r)]$ be the set of homotopy classes of based maps from CW-complexes $X$ into the mod $p^r$ Moore spaces $M_n(\mathbb{Z}/p^r)$ of degree $n$, where $\mathbb{Z}/p^r$…

The spaces of triangulations of a given manifold have been widely studied. The celebrated theorem of Pachner~\cite{Pachner} says that any two triangulations of a given manifold can be connected by a sequence of bistellar moves, or Pachner…

We show that for a smooth, closed 2-connected manifold $M$ of dimension $d \geq 6$, the topological mapping class group $\pi_0 \mathrm{Homeo}(M)$ is residually finite, in contrast to the situation for the smooth mapping class group $\pi_0…

We construct an action of the free group $F_n$ on the homotopy category of projective modules over a finite dimensional zigzag algebra. The main theorem in the paper is that this action is faithful. We describe the relationship between…

We describe an algebraic proof of the well-known topological fact that $\pi_1(SO(n)) \cong Z/2Z$. The fundamental group of $SO(n)$ appears in our approach as the center of a certain finite group defined by generators and relations. The…

In the symplectic mapping class group of a $4$-dimensional Weinstein domain, we give a relation between two products of (right-handed) Dehn twists via holomorphic curve techniques. A key ingredient of the construction is a solution to the…

We show that, for certain families $\phi_{\mathbf{s}}$ of diffeomorphisms of high-dimensional spheres, the commutator of the Dehn twist along the zero-section of $T^*S^n$ with the family of pullbacks $\phi^*_{\mathbf{s}}$ gives a…

If P \to X is a topological principal K-bundle and \hat K a central extension of K by Z, then there is a natural obstruction class \delta_1(P) in \check H^2(X,\uline Z) in sheaf cohomology whose vanishing is equivalent to the existence of a…

The mod 4 braid group, $\mathcal{Z}_{n}$, is defined to be the quotient of the braid group by the subgroup of the pure braid group generated by squares of all elements. Kordek and Margalit proved $\mathcal{Z}_{n}$ is an extension of the…

We introduce and study a new family of extensions for the Borsuk-Ulam and topological Radon type theorems. The defining idea for this new family is to replace requirements of the form `a subset that is large in some sense goes to a…

We obtain a finite generating set for the level 2 twist subgroup of the mapping class group of a closed non-orientable surface. The generating set consists of crosscap pushing maps along non-separating two-sided simple loops and squares of…

Given positive integers n and m, we consider dynamical systems in which n copies of a topological space is homeomorphic to m copies of that same space. The universal such system is shown to arise naturally from the study of a C*-algebra we…

We consider a class of topological objects in the 3-sphere $S^3$ which will be called $n$-punctured ball tangles. Using the Kauffman bracket at $A=e^{i \pi/4}$, an invariant for a special type of $n$-punctured ball tangles is defined. The…

Let $M_g$ be the moduli space of smooth genus $g$ curves. We define a notion of Chow groups of $M_g$ with coefficients in a representation of $Sp(2g)$, and we define a subgroup of tautological classes in these Chow groups with twisted…

This chapter provides a comprehensive survey of foundational results and recent advances concerning minimal generating sets for the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface, $\mathrm{Mod}(N_{g})$, and its index-two twist subgroup,…

Let $\Gamma_{g,1}^m$ be the mapping class group of the orientable surface $\Sigma_{g,1}^m$ of genus $g$ with one parametrised boundary curve and $m$ permutable punctures; when $m=0$ we omit it from the notation. Let…

For $g\geq 2$, let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ be the mapping class group of the closed orientable surface $S_g$ of genus $g$. In this paper, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions under which a given pseudo-periodic mapping class can be a…

The so-called Tits class, associated to an adjoint absolutely almost simple algebraic group, provides a cohomological obstruction for this group to admit an outer automorphism. If the group has inner type, this obstruction is the only one.…

We compute the abelianisations of the mapping class groups of the manifolds $W_g^{2n} = g(S^n \times S^n)$ for $n \geq 3$ and $g \geq 5$. The answer is a direct sum of two parts. The first part arises from the action of the mapping class…