Related papers: Weakly framed surface configurations, Heisenberg h…

We classify representations of the mapping class group of a surface of genus $g$ (with at most one puncture or boundary component) up to dimension $3g-3$. Any such representation is the direct sum of a representation in dimension $2g$ or…

We show that the action of the mapping class group on bordered Floer homology in the second to extremal spin^c-structure is faithful. This paper is designed partly as an introduction to the subject, and much of it should be readable without…

Finite presentations for the mapping class group M(F) are known for arbitrary orientable compact surface F. If F is non-orientable, then such presentations are known only when F has genus at most 3 and few boundary components. In this paper…

Let $H_{g}$ be a 3-dimensional handlebody of genus $g$. We determine the twisted first homology group of the mapping class group of $H_{g}$ with coefficients in the first integral homology group of the boundary surface $\partial H_{g}$ for…

In this paper we define a $\mathbf{QP}^1$-valued class function on the mapping class group $\mathcal{M}_{g,2}$ of a surface $\Sigma_{g,2}$ of genus $g$ with two boundary components. Let $E$ be a $\Sigma_{g,2}$ bundle over a pair of pants…

A conjecture of Broaddus is proven, giving a simple characterisation of a representative of the unique orbit of the action of the mapping class group on the homology of Harvey's complex of curves for any genus surface. As an application,…

We give completely combinatorial proofs of the main results of [3] using polygons. Namely, we prove that the mapping class group of a surface with boundary acts faithfully on a finitely-generated linear category. Along the way we prove some…

Let $\widetilde{S}$ be a closed (compact without boundary) oriented surface with genus $g$, and $G$ be a group isomorphic to $% \mathbf{Z}_{p}^{m}$, where $p$ is a prime integer. An action of $G$ on $S$ is a pair $(\widetilde{S},f)$, where…

In this paper, we study the mapping class group action on the relative $\text{PSL}(2,\mathbb{R})$-character varieties of punctured surfaces. It is well known that Minsky's primitive-stable representations form a domain of discontinuity for…

This paper has 3 principal goals: (1) to survey what is know about mapping class and Torelli groups of simply connected compact Kaehler manifolds, (2) supplement these results, and (3) present a list of questions and open problems to…

We study surface groups $\Gamma$ in $SO(4,1)$, which is the group of Mobius tranformations of $S^3$, and also the group of isometries of $\mathbb{H}^4$. We consider such $\Gamma$ so that its limit set $\Lambda_\Gamma$ is a quasi-circle in…

We introduce and study a new class of representations of surface groups into Lie groups of Hermitian type, called weakly maximal representations. They are defined in terms of invariants in bounded cohomology and extend considerably the…

We study configuration spaces of framed points on oriented closed smooth manifolds. Such configuration spaces admit natural actions of the framed little discs operads, that play an important role in the study of embedding spaces of…

Let $\Gamma$ be a finite-index subgroup of the mapping class group of a closed genus $g$ surface that contains the Torelli group. For instance, $\Gamma$ can be the level $L$ subgroup or the spin mapping class group. We show that…

We construct a geometric model for the mapping class group M of a non-exceptional oriented surface of finite type and use it to show that the action of M on the compact Hausdorff space of complete geodesic laminations is topologically…

The mapping class group of a compact oriented surface of genus greater than one with boundary acts ergodically on connected components of the representation variety corresponding to a connected compact Lie group, for every choice of…

Let $\phi \in {\rm Mod}(\Sigma)$ be an arbitrary element of the mapping class group of a closed orientable surface $\Sigma$ of genus at least $2$. For any characteristic cover $\widetilde{\Sigma} \to \Sigma$ one can consider the linear…

This expository paper details the theory of rank one Higgs bundles over a closed Riemann surface X and their relationship to representations of the fundamental group of X. We construct an equivalence between the deformation theories of flat…

We study the first homology group of the mapping class group and Torelli group with coefficients in the first rational homology group of the universal abelian cover of the surface. We prove two contrasting results: for surfaces with one…

We obtain a simple presentation of the hyperelliptic mapping class group $M^h(N)$ of a nonorientable surface N. As an application we compute the first homology group of $M^h(N)$ with coefficients in $H_1(N;Z)$.