Related papers: The Goldman bracket characterizes homeomorphisms b…

We show that a homotopy equivalence between compact, connected, oriented surfaces with non-empty boundary is homotopic to a homeomorphism if and only if it commutes with the Goldman bracket.

We show that every orientable infinite-type surface is properly rigid as a consequence of a more general result. Namely, we prove that if a homotopy equivalence between any two non-compact orientable surfaces is a proper map, then it is…

We show that, for a closed non-orientable surface $F$, an automorphism of $H_1(F,\Z)$ is induced by a homeomorphism of $F$ if and only if it preserves the (mod 2) intersection pairing. We shall also prove the corresponding result for…

We prove that for any non-compact connected surface $M$ the group $H_c(M)$ of compactly suported homeomorphisms of $M$ endowed with the Whitney topology is homeomorphic to $R^\infty\times l_2$ or $Z\times R^\infty\times l_2$.

Let $S$ be a complete flat surface, such as the Euclidean plane. We determine the homeomorphism class of the space of all curves on $S$ which start and end at given points in given directions and whose curvatures are constrained to lie in a…

Suppose M is a noncompact connected PL 2-manifold and let H(M)_0 denote the identity component of the homeomorphism group of M with the compact-open topology. In this paper we classify the homotopy type of H(M)_0 by showing that {\cal…

We show that finite-type surfaces are characterized by a topological analog of the Hopf property. Namely, an oriented surface $\Sigma$ is of finite-type if and only if every proper map $f\colon\Sigma\to \Sigma$ of degree one is homotopic to…

We study the homeomorphism types of certain covers of (always orientable) surfaces, usually of infinite-type. We show that every surface with non-abelian fundamental group is covered by every noncompact surface, we identify the universal…

A Heegaard splitting of an open 3-manifold is the partition of the manifold into two non-compact handlebodies which intersect on their common boundary. This paper proves several non-compact analogues of theorems about compact Heegaard…

We demonstrate that the proper homotopy equivalence relation for locally finite graphs is Borel complete. Furthermore, among the infinite graphs, there is a comeager equivalence class. As corollaries, we obtain the analogous results for the…

In this work we study homeomorphisms of closed orientable surfaces homotopic to the identity, focusing on the existence of non-contractible periodic orbits. We show that, if $g$ is such a homeomorphism, and if $\hat g$ is its lift to the…

In the mid eighties Goldman proved an embedded curve could be isotoped to not intersect a closed geodesic if and only if their Lie bracket (as defined in that work) vanished. Goldman asked for a topological proof and about extensions of the…

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.

Homotopy is an important feature of associative and Jordan algebraic structures: such structures always come in families whose members need not be isomorphic among other, but still share many important properties. One may regard homotopy as…

We classify, up to homeomorphism, all closed manifolds having the homotopy type of a connected sum of two copies of real projective n-space.

In the context of (2+1)--dimensional gravity, we use holonomies of constant connections which generate a $q$--deformed representation of the fundamental group to derive signed area phases which relate the quantum matrices assigned to…

In this paper we consider two connected closed Haken manifolds denoted by M^3 and N^3, with the same Gromov simplicial volume. We give a simple homological criterion to decide when a given map f: M^3-->N^3 between M^3 and N^3 can be changed…

Let S be a compact connected surface and let f be an element of the group Homeo\_0(S) of homeomorphisms of S isotopic to the identity. Denote by \tilde{f} a lift of f to the universal cover of S. Fix a fundamental domain D of this universal…

Let $f\colon M\to N$ be a proper map between two aspherical compact orientable 3-manifolds with empty or toroidal boundary. We assume that $N$ is not a closed graph-manifold. Suppose that $f$ induces an epimorphism on fundamental groups. We…

A homotopy equivalence between a hyperbolic 3-manifold and a closed irreducible 3-manifold is homotopic to a homeomorphsim provided the hyperbolic manifold satisfies a purely geometric condition. There are no known examples of hyperbolic…