Related papers: Boundary Dehn twists are often commutators
By the work of Baraglia-Konno and Kronheimer-Mrowka, the boundary Dehn twist on punctured $K3$ surfaces is nontrivial in the smooth mapping class group relative to boundary. In this short note, we prove that it becomes trivial after…
We prove that the boundary Dehn twist on $K3\#K3\setminus B^4$ is nontrivial in the smooth mapping class group, providing another example of an exotic diffeomorphism on a simply-connected spin four-manifold. We do so by finding an algebraic…
This note has two related but independent parts. Firstly, we prove a generalisation of a recent result of Gay on the smooth mapping class group of $S^4$. Secondly, we give an alternative proof of a consequence of work of Saeki, namely that…
Kronheimer-Mrowka shows that the Dehn twist along a $3$-sphere in the neck of two $K3$ surfaces is not smoothly isotopic to the identity. Their result requires that the manifolds are simply connected and the signature of one of them is $16…
Dehn twists around simple closed curves in oriented surfaces satisfy the braid relations. This gives rise to a group theoretic from the braid group to the mapping class group. We prove here that this map is trivial in stable homology with…
We show that any homologically non-trivial Dehn twist of a compact surface F with boundary is the lifting of a half-twist in the braid group B_n, with respect to a suitable branched covering p : F -> B^2. In particular, we allow the surface…
A homeomorphism of a 3-manifold M is said to be Dehn twists on the boundary when its restriction to the boundary of M is isotopic to the identity on the complement of a collection of disjoint simple closed curves in the boundary of M. In…
We construct the first examples of non-smoothable self-homeomorphisms of smooth $4$-manifolds with boundary that fix the boundary and act trivially on homology. As a corollary, we construct self-diffeomorphisms of $4$-manifolds with…
We prove that a variety of examples of minimal complex surfaces admit exotic diffeomorphisms, providing the first known instances of exotic diffeomorphisms of irreducible 4-manifolds. We also give sufficient conditions for the boundary Dehn…
The purpose of this article is two-fold: We first give a more elementary proof of a recent theorem of Korkmaz, Monden, and the author, which states that the commutator length of the n-th power of a Dehn twist along a boundary parallel curve…
By Torelli topology the author understands aspects of the topology of surfaces (potentially) relevant to the study of Torelli groups. The present paper is devoted to a new approach to the results of W. Vautaw about Dehn multi-twists in…
On a compact oriented surface of genus $g$ with $n\geq 1$ boundary components, $\delta_1, \delta_2,\ldots, \delta_n$, we consider positive factorizations of the boundary multitwist $t_{\delta_1} t_{\delta_2} \cdots t_{\delta_n}$, where…
For any unoriented loop on a compact connected oriented surface with one boundary component, the generalized Dehn twist along the loop is defined as an automorphism of the completed group ring of the fundamental group of the surface. If the…
Ruberman gave the first examples of self-diffeomorphisms of four-manifolds that are isotopic to the identity in the topological category but not smoothly so. We give another example of this phenomenon, using the Dehn twist along a 3-sphere…
The generalized Dehn twist along a closed curve in an oriented surface is an algebraic construction which involves intersections of loops in the surface. It is defined as an automorphism of the Malcev completion of the fundamental group of…
Let t_a be the Dehn twist about a circle a on an orientable surface. It is well known that for each circle b and an integer n, I(t_a^n(b),b)=|n|I(a,b)^2, where I(,) is the geometric intersection number. We prove a similar formula for…
A degeneration of compact Kaehler manifolds gives rise to a monodromy action on Betti moduli space H^1(X, G) = Hom(\pi_1(X),G)/G over smooth fibres with a complex algebraic structure group G being either abelian or reductive. Assume that…
Let $N_g^k$ be a nonorientable surface of genus \ $g\geq 5$ \ with \ $k$-punctures. In this note, we will give an algebraic characterization of a Dehn twist about a simple closed curve on $N_g^k$. Along the way, we will fill some little…
We undertake a systematic investigation of compact aspherical manifolds with boundary; motivated by the plethora of examples in the bounded case and by the beauty of the theory in the closed case. Our main theorems give a homological…
For a compact, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold with toroidal boundary that is not the product of a torus and an interval or a cable space, each boundary torus has a finite set of slopes such that, if avoided, the Thurston norm of a Dehn…