Related papers: Weakly framed surface configurations, Heisenberg h…

For the ``Hopf bundle'' $S^1\to S^{2n,1} \to {\mathbb H}^n$, horizontal lifts of simple closed curves are studied. Let $\gamma$ be a piecewise smooth, simple closed curve on a complete totally geodesic surface $S$ in the base space. Then…

In this paper, we briefly review some of the known results concerning the cohomological structures of the mapping class group of surfaces, the outer automorphism group of free groups, the diffeomorphism group of surfaces as well as various…

We prove that the homology of the mapping class group of any 3-manifold stabilizes under connected sum and boundary connected sum with an arbitrary 3-manifold when both manifolds are compact and orientable. The stabilization also holds for…

In this paper we study the topology of the space of Riemann surfaces in a simply connected space X, S_{g,n} (X, \gamma). This is the space consisting of triples, (F_{g,n}, \phi, f), where F_{g,n} is a Riemann surface of genus g and…

Let T(N) be the subgroup of the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface N (possibly with punctures and/or boundary components) generated by twists about two-sided circles. We obtain a simple generating set for T(N). As an application…

We introduce a general class of Heisenberg groups motivated by applications of algebraic Fourier theory. Basic properties are examined from a homological perspective.

The odd character variety of a Riemann surface is a moduli space of SO(3) representations of the fundamental group which can be interpreted as the moduli space of stable holomorphic rank 2 bundles of odd degree and fixed determinant. This…

We present a general framework for reduction of symplectic Q-manifolds via graded group actions. In this framework, the homological structure on the acting group is a multiplicative multivector field.

We give a short, mostly elementary and self-contained proof of the classical result that the groups of diffeomorphisms, homeomorphisms, and homotopy equivalences of a surface have the same group of connected components.

We calculate the weak homotopy type of the group of contactomorphisms of the three-sphere which coincide with the identity on (a neighborhood of) an overtwisted disk.

The aim of this paper is to study the virtual classes of representation varieties of surface groups onto the rank one affine group. We perform this calculation by three different approaches: the geometric method, based on stratifying the…

Monoidal product, braiding, balancing and weak duality are pieces of algebraic information that are well-known to have their origin in oriented genus zero surfaces and their mapping classes. More precisely, each of them correspond to…

In this paper, we construct and study derived character maps of finite-dimensional representations of $\infty$-groups. As models for $\infty$-groups we take homotopy simplicial groups, i.e. homotopy simplicial algebras over the algebraic…

Let M be a compact closed non-orientable surface. We show that the space of representations of the fundamental group of M into PSL(2,R) has exactly two connected components. These two components are the preimages of a certain…

We present a general construction of embedded minimal and constant mean curvature surfaces in $\mathbb{S}^n$ and one-phase free boundaries joined by a smooth interpolation by capillary hypersurfaces. This framework recovers all known…

The configuration space of k points on a manifold carries an action of its diffeomorphism group. The homotopy quotient of this action is equivalent to the classifying space of diffeomorphisms of a punctured manifold, and therefore admits…

Let $\Gamma_{g,b}$ denote the orientation-preserving Mapping Class Group of a closed orientable surface of genus $g$ with $b$ punctures. For a group $G$ let $\Phi_f(G)$ denote the intersection of all maximal subgroups of finite index in…

We examine the action of the fundamental group $\Gamma$ of a Riemann surface with $m$ punctures on the middle dimensional homology of a regular fiber in a Lefschetz fibration, and describe to what extent this action can be recovered from…

In a previous work, the authors introduced the notion of `coherent tangent bundle', which is useful for giving a treatment of singularities of smooth maps without ambient spaces. Two different types of Gauss-Bonnet formulas on coherent…

Stiefel-Whitney classes are invariants of the tangent bundle of a smooth manifold, represented as cohomology classes of the base manifold. These classes are essential in obstruction theory, embedding problems, and cobordism theory. In this…