Related papers: Smallest nonabelian quotients of surface braid gro…
We prove that the symmetric group $S_n$ is the smallest non-cyclic quotient of the braid group $B_n$ for $n=5,6$ and that the alternating group $A_n$ is the smallest non-trivial quotient of the commutator subgroup $B_n'$ for $n = 5,6,7,8$.…
We derive a lower bound on the size of finite non-cyclic quotients of the braid group that is superexponential in the number of strands. We also derive a similar lower bound for nontrivial finite quotients of the commutator subgroup of the…
We show that the smallest non-cyclic quotients of braid groups are symmetric groups, proving a conjecture of Margalit. Moreover we recover results of Artin and Lin about the classification of homomorphisms from braid groups on n strands to…
Let $\Sigma_b$ be a compact Riemann surface of genus $b \geq 2$ and let $\mathsf{P}_2(\Sigma_b)=\pi_1(\Sigma_b \times \Sigma_b - \Delta)$ be the corresponding pure braid group on two strands. A finite quotient $\varphi \colon…
We prove that the minimal nontrivial finite quotient group of the mapping class group M_g of a closed orientable surface of genus g is the symplectic group PSp(2g,Z_2), for g = 3 and 4 (this might remain true, however, for arbitrary genus g…
Let n be greater than or equal to 3. We study the quotient group B\_n/[P n,P\_n] of the Artin braid group B\_n by the commutator subgroup of its pure Artin braid group P\_n. We show that B\_n/[P n,P\_n] is a crystallographic group, and in…
We prove that the smallest non-trivial quotients of the commutator subgroups of the braid groups are the alternating groups, proving a conjecture of Chudnovsky-Kordek-Li-Partin. Furthermore, we show that any minimal quotient map is the…
In this paper we study abelian and metabelian quotients of braid groups on oriented surfaces with boundary components. We provide group presentations and we prove rigidity results for these quotients arising from exact sequences related to…
Generalising a previous result, we determine all non-abelian finite simple groups whose order has largest prime divisor not exceeding $10^4$. The computer code for this and similar calculations is made available.
We consider normal subgroups $N$ of the braid group $B_n$ such that the quotient $B_n/N$ is an extension of the symmetric group by an abelian group. We show that, if $n\geq 4$, then there are exactly 8 commensurability classes of such…
We prove that a quotient G/N of a subgroup G of Sym(n) by a nonabelian minimal normal subgroup N of G embeds into Sym(m) for some $m<n$. This result was proved previously by Robert Chamberlain, and we also prove that,if G is transitive,…
We prove that the smallest non-trivial quotient of the mapping class group of a connected orientable surface of genus at least 3 without punctures is $\mathrm{Sp}_{2g}(2)$, thus confirming a conjecture of Zimmermann. In the process, we…
We classify smooth projective surfaces that are quotients of abelian surfaces by finite groups.
Motivated by the recently introduced concept of a pseudosymmetric braided monoidal category, we define the pseudosymmetric group PS_n, as the quotient of the braid group B_n by the relations \sigma_i\sigma_{i+1}^{-1}\sigma_i=\sigma…
Given a group $G$ and an integer $n \geq 0$, let $\mathcal{F}_n$ denote the family of all virtually abelian subgroups of $G$ of rank at most $n$. In this article, we show that for each $n \geq 1$, the minimal dimension of a model for the…
We find the nonabelian finite simple groups with order prime divisors not exceeding 1000. More generally, we determine the sets of nonabelian finite simple groups whose maximal order prime divisor is a fixed prime less than 1000. Our…
Let $M$ be the disk or a compact, connected surface without boundary different from the sphere $S^2$ and the real projective plane $\mathbb{R}P^2$, and let $N$ be a compact, connected surface (possibly with boundary). It is known that the…
Let $\Sigma_b$ be a closed Riemann surface of genus $b$. We give an account of some results obtained in the recent papers \cite{CaPol19, Pol20, PolSab21} and concerning what we call here \emph{pure braid quotients},namely non-abelian finite…
A product-quotient surface is the minimal resolution of the singularities of the quotient of a product of two curves by the action of a finite group acting separately on the two factors. We classify all minimal product-quotient surfaces of…
Motivated by a question by D. Mumford : can a computer classify all surfaces with $p_g = 0$ ? we try to show the complexity of the problem. We restrict it to the classification of the minimal surfaces of general type with $p_g = 0, K^2 = 8$…