Related papers: Geometric representations of the braid group on a …

Herein we prove that if $M$ is a compact oriented Riemann surface of genus $g$, and $M^{[n]}$ is the classifying space of $n$ distinct, unordered points on $M$, then the kernel of the map $\pi_1(M^{[n]})\to H_1(M)$ is generated by…

We show that branched coverings of surfaces of large enough genus arise as characteristic maps of braided surfaces that is, lift to embeddings in the product of the surface with $\mathbb R^2$. This result is nontrivial already for…

A crosscap transposition is an element of the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface represented by a homeomorphism supported on a one-holed Klein bottle and swapping two crosscaps. We prove that the mapping class group of a compact…

We consider finite-sheeted, regular, possibly branched covering spaces of compact surfaces with boundary and the associated liftable and symmetric mapping class groups. In particular, we classify when either of these subgroups coincides…

This paper concerns rigidity of the mapping class groups. We show that any homomorphism $\phi:{\rm Mod}_g\to {\rm Mod}_h$ between mapping class groups of closed orientable surfaces with distinct genera $g>h$ is trivial if $g\geq 3$ and has…

Braids can be represented geometrically as curve diagrams. The geometric complexity of a braid is the minimal complexity of a curve diagram representing it. We introduce and study the corresponding notion of geometric generating function.…

We prove a result that relates the number of homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a compact nonorientable surface to a finite group $G$, where conjugacy classes of the boundary components of the surface must map to prescribed…

Let N_{g,s} denote the nonorientable surface of genus g with s boundary components. Recently Paris and Szepietowski obtained an explicit finite presentation for the mapping class group M(N_{g,s}) of the surface N_{g,s}, where s\in{0,1} and…

By analyzing known presentations of the pure mapping groups of orientable surfaces of genus $g$ with $b$ boundary components and $n$ punctures, we show that these groups are isomorphic to some groups related to the braid groups and the…

We study the representations of the commutator subgroup of the braid group with n strands in the symmetric group of degree r. Motivated by some experimental results, we conjecture that for n>r, every such representation is trivial.

We take the fundamental group of the complement of the branch curve of a generic projection induced from canonical embedding of a surface. This group is stable on connected components of moduli spaces of surfaces. Since for many classes of…

We construct $(2n+1)\times (2n+1)$ matrices corresponding to a motion of points on the plane from the point of view of Delaunay triangulations. We define a homomorphism from the pure braid group on ($n+3$) strands to the general linear…

Let S be a compact, oriented surface with negative Euler characteristic and let f be a homeomorphism of S that is isotopic to the identity. If there exists a periodic orbit with a non-zero rotation vector, then there exists a simple braid…

Let G be a graph. The (unlabeled) configuration space of n points on G is the space of all n-element subsets of G. The fundamental group of such a configuration space is called a graph braid group. We use a version of discrete Morse theory…

For every $n\ge 2$, the {\em surface Houghton group} $\mathcal B_n$ is defined as the asymptotically rigid mapping class group of a surface with exactly $n$ ends, all of them non-planar. The groups $\mathcal B_n$ are analogous to, and in…

The $d$-fold ($d \geq 3$) branched coverings on a disk give an infinite family of nongeometric embeddings of braid groups into mapping class groups. We, in this paper, give new explicit expressions of these braid group representations into…

By a regular embedding of a graph K in a surface we mean a 2-cell embedding of K in a compact connected surface such that the automorphism group acts regularly on flags. In this paper, we classify the nonorientable regular embeddings of the…

We give a finite presentation of the mapping class group of an oriented (possibly bounded) surface of genus greater or equal than 1, considering Dehn twists on a very simple set of curves.

In this paper, we prove that each automorphism of a surface braid group is induced by a homeomorphism of the underlying surface, provided that this surface is a closed, connected, orientable surface of genus at least 2, and the number of…

We solve the isomorphism problem for braid groups on trees with $n = 4$ or 5 strands. We do so in three main steps, each of which is interesting in its own right. First, we establish some tools and terminology for dealing with computations…