Related papers: The mapping class group of a genus two surface is …

Lawrence-Krammer representations are an important family of linear representations of Artin-Tits groups of small type, which are known, under some assumptions on the parameters, to be faithful when the type is spherical (or more generally…

Recently, John Franks and Michael Handel proved that, for $g\geq 3$ and $n\leq 2g-4$, every homomorphism from the mapping class group of an orientable surface of genus $g$ to $\GL (n,\C)$ is trivial. We extend this result to $n\leq 2g-1$,…

We investigate the rigidity and asymptotic properties of quantum SU(2) representations of mapping class groups. In the spherical braid group case the trivial representation is not isolated in the family of quantum SU(2) representations. 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…

The pure braid group \Gamma of a quadruply-punctured Riemann sphere acts on the SL(2,C)-moduli M of the representation variety of such sphere. The points in M are classified into \Gamma-orbits. We show that, in this case, the monodromy…

This paper gives insight into intriguing connections between two apparently unrelated theories: the theory of skein modules of 3-manifolds and the theory of representations of groups into special linear groups of 2 by 2 matrices. Let R be a…

We present a complete classification of elements in the mapping class group of the torus which have a representative that can be written as a product of two orientation reversing involutions. Our interest in such decompositions is motivated…

A connection is made between the Krammer representation and the Birman-Murakami-Wenzl algebra. Inspired by a dimension argument, a basis is found for a certain irrep of the algebra, and relations which generate the matrices are found.…

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…

We prove that the mapping class group of the one-holed Cantor tree surface is acyclic. This in turn determines the homology of the mapping class group of the once-punctured Cantor tree surface (i.e. the plane minus a Cantor set), in…

We prove that the sequence of projective representations of the mapping class group obtained from the projective flat connection in the SU(n)-Verlinde bundles over Teichmuller space is asymptotically faithful, that is the intersection over…

We calculate the virtually-cyclic dimension of the mapping class group of a sphere with at most six punctures. As an immediate consequence, we obtain the virtually-cyclic dimension of the mapping class group of the twice-holed torus and of…

We show how, given a sufficiently large point cloud sampled from an embedded 2-manifold in $\mathbb{R}^n$, we may obtain a global representation as a cell complex with vertices given by a representative subset of the point cloud. The vertex…

For any positive integer $n$, we exhibit a cofinite subgroup $\Gamma_n$ of the mapping class group of a surface of genus at most two such that $\Gamma_n$ admits an epimorphism onto a free group of rank $n$. We conclude that…

Let B be the generalized braid group associated to some finite complex reflection group. We define a representation of B of dimension the number of reflections of the corresponding reflection group, which generalizes the Krammer…

We study the action of the mapping class group on the real homology of finite covers of a topological surface. We use the homological representation of the mapping class to construct a faithful infinite-dimensional representation of the…

We show that the mapping class group of any closed connected orientable surface of genus at least five is generated by only two commutators, and if the genus is three or four, by three commutators.

Let $\Sigma_{g,n}$ be the orientable genus $g$ surface with $n$ punctures, where $2-2g-n<0$. Let $$\rho: \pi_1(\Sigma_{g,n})\to GL_m(\mathbb{C})$$ be a representation. Suppose that for each finite covering map $f: \Sigma_{g', n'}\to…

We show that the mapping class group acts properly on the space of maximal representations of the fundamental group of a closed Riemann surface into G when G = Sp(2n,R), SU(n,n), SO*(2n) or Spin(2,n).

We derive two types of linearity conditions for mapping class groups of orientable surfaces: one for once-punctured surface, and the other for closed surface, respectively. For the once-punctured case, the condition is described in terms of…