Related papers: Free products of abelian groups in mapping class g…

We consider linear groups which do not contain unipotent elements of infinite order, which includes all linear groups in positive characteristic, and show that this class of groups has good properties which resemble those held by groups of…

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 show that every subgroup of the mapping class group MCG(S) of a compact surface S is either virtually abelian or it has infinite dimensional second bounded cohomology. As an application, we give another proof of the…

This paper investigates the relationship between strata of abelian differentials and various mapping class groups afforded by means of the topological monodromy representation. Building off of prior work of the authors, we show that the…

We define a class $\mathcal{U}$ of solvable groups of finite abelian section rank which includes all such groups that are virtually torsion-free as well as those that are finitely generated. Assume that $G$ is a group in $\mathcal{U}$ and…

In this paper we determine the torsion free rank of the group of endotrivial modules for any finite group of Lie type, in both defining and non-defining characteristic. On our way to proving this, we classify the maximal rank $2$ elementary…

We show the existence of several new infinite families of polynomially-growing automorphisms of free groups whose mapping tori are CAT(0) free-by-cyclic groups. Such mapping tori are thick, and thus not relatively hyperbolic. These are the…

Aimed at geometric applications, we prove the homology cobordism invariance of the $L^2$-betti numbers and $L^2$-signature defects associated to the class of amenable groups lying in Strebel's class $D(R)$, which includes some interesting…

In this article we will describe a finitely presented subgroup of Monod's group of piecewise projective homeomorphisms of R. This in particular provides a new example of a finitely presented group which is nonamenable and yet does not…

We prove that a subgroup of a finitely generated free nilpotent group F is undistorted if and only if it is a retract of a subgroup of finite index in F.

We are concerned with mapping class groups of surfaces with nonempty boundary. We present a very natural method, due to Thurston, of finding many different left orderings of such groups. The construction involves equipping the surface with…

Let $G$ be a hyperbolic group that splits as a graph of free groups with cyclic edge groups. We prove that, unless $G$ is isomorphic to a free product of free and surface groups, every finite abelian group $M$ appears as a direct summand in…

We give new and improved results on the freeness of subgroups of free profinite groups: A subgroup containing the normal closure of a finite word in the elements of a basis is free; Every infinite index subgroup of a finitely generated…

We quantify the generation of free subgroups of surface mapping class groups by pseudo-Anosov mapping classes in terms of their translation distance and the distance between their axes. Our methods make reference to \teichmuller space only.

We show that on an arbitrary finitely generated non virtually solvable linear group, any two independent random walks will eventually generate a free subgroup. In fact, this will hold for an exponential number of independent random walks.

Let $S_g$ be the closed oriented surface of genus $g \geq 0$, and let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ be the mapping class group of $S_g$. For $g\geq 2$, we develop an algorithm to obtain a finite generating set for the liftable mapping class group…

We are concerned with orderable groups and particularly those with orderings invariant not only under multiplication, but also under a given automorphism or family of automorphisms. Several applications to topology are given: we prove that…

A pseudomodular group is a discrete subgroup $\Gamma \leq PGL(2,\mathbb{Q})$ which is not commensurable with $PSL(2,\mathbb{Z})$ and has cusp set precisely $\mathbb{Q}\cup\{\infty\}$. The existence of such groups was proved by Long and…

We explicitly construct new subgroups of the mapping class groups of an uncountable collection of infinite-type surfaces, including, but not limited to, free groups, Baumslag-Solitar groups, mapping class groups of other surfaces, and a…

We give two examples of a finitely generated subgroup of a free group and a subset, closed in the profinite topology of a free group, such that their product is not closed in the profinite topology of a free group.