Related papers: Involution Generators of the Big Mapping Class Gro…

In the stable general linear group over an arbitrary field, we prove that every element with determinant $\pm 1$ is the product of three involutions, and of no less in general. We also obtain several results of the same flavor, with…

We give an infinite presentation for the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface with boundary components. The presentation is a generalization of the presentation given by the second author [15].

Let S be any orientable surface of infinite genus with a finite number of boundary components. In this work we consider the curve complex C(S), the nonseparating curve complex N(S) and the Schmutz graph G(S) of S. When all the topological…

An involution on a semigroup S (or any algebra with an underlying associative binary operation) is a function f:S->S that satisfies f(xy)=f(y)f(x) and f(f(x))=x for all x,y in S. The set I(S) of all such involutions on S generates a…

We describe a family of rational affine surfaces S with huge groups of automorphisms in the following sense: the normal subgroup of Aut(S) generated by all its algebraic subgroups is not generated by any countable family of such subgroups,…

Let $S_{g,n}$ be a closed oriented hyperbolic surface of genus $g$ with $n$ marked points, with the understanding that $S_{g,0}=S_g$. Let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_{h,n})$ be the mapping class group of $S_{h,n}$ and $\mathrm{LMod}_p(S_{h,n})$ be the…

Let $M_n := \mathbb{CP}^2 \# n\overline{\mathbb{CP}^2}$ for $0 \leq n \leq 8$ be the underlying smooth manifold of a degree $9-n$ del Pezzo surface. We prove three results about the mapping class group $\text{Mod}(M_n) :=…

We prove that in dimensions not equal to 4, 5, or 7, the homology and homotopy groups of the classifying space of the topological group of diffeomorphisms of a disk fixing the boundary are finitely generated in each degree. The proof uses…

Let S be a generating set of a group G. We say that G has FINITE WIDTH relative to S if G=(S\cup S^{-1})^k for a suitable natural number k. We say that a group G is a group of FINITE C-WIDTH if G has finite width with respect to all…

Let $\Sigma$ be a surface with negative Euler characteristic, genus at least one and at most one boundary component. We prove that the skein algebra of $\Sigma$ over the field of rational functions can be algebraically generated by a finite…

We consider a number of examples of groups together with an infinite conjugation invariant generating set, including: the free group with the generating set of all separable elements; surface groups with the generating set of all…

Let $N_g$ be the non-orientable surface with genus $g$, $\text{MCG}(N_g)$ be the mapping class group of $N_g$, $\mathcal{T}(N_g)$ be the index 2 subgroup generated by all Dehn twists of $\text{MCG}(N_g)$. We prove that for odd genus,…

We prove that for any infinite-type orientable surface S there exists a collection of essential curves {\Gamma} in S such that any homeomorphism that preserves the isotopy classes of the elements of {\Gamma} is isotopic to the identity. The…

We describe some theoretical results on triangulations of surfaces and we develop a theory on roots, decompositions and genus-surfaces. We apply this theory to describe an algorithm to list all triangulations of closed surfaces with at most…

The algebra of invariants of d-tuples of n x n skew-symmetric matrices under the action of the orthogonal group by simultaneous conjugation is considered over an infinite field of characteristic different from two. For n=3 and d>0 a minimal…

We prove that every automorphism of an infinite-dimensional vector space over a field is the product of four involutions, a result that is optimal in the general case. We also characterize the automorphisms that are the product of three…

Let I be a countably infinite set, S = Sym(I) the group of permutations of I, and E = End(I) the monoid of self-maps of I. Given two subgroups G, G' of S, let us write G \approx_S G' if there exists a finite subset U of S such that the…

We construct new monomorphisms between mapping class groups of surfaces. The first family of examples injects the mapping class group of a closed surface into that of a different closed surface. The second family of examples are defined on…

The higher connectivity at infinity for mapping class groups of surfaces with boundary components and punctures is understood with the exceptions of the mapping class groups for the closed surfaces of genus 3 and 4. In this paper we prove a…

In this note, we construct three new infinite families of surfaces of general type with canonical map of degree 2 onto a surface of general type. For one of these families the canonical system has base points.