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

Let K be a knot in an integral homology 3-sphere and let B denote the 2-fold branched cover of the integral homology sphere branched along K. We construct a map from the slice of characters with trace free along meridians in the SL(2,…

Lawrence-Krammer representations (LK-representations for short) are linear representations of Artin-Tits groups of small type, which are of importance since they are known to be faithful when the type is spherical, or more generally when…

We construct the lattice gauge theory of the group G_N, the semidirect product of the permutation group S_N with U(1)^N, on an arbitrary Riemann surface. This theory describes the branched coverings of a two-dimensional target surface by…

We give a topological interpretation of the core group invariant of a surface embedded in S^4. We show that the group is isomorphic to the free product of the fundamental group of the double branch cover of S^4 with the surface as a…

We prove that the symplectic group $Sp(2n,\mathbb Z)$ and the mapping class group $Mod_{S}$ of a compact surface $S$ satisfy the $R_{\infty}$ property. We also show that $B_n(S)$, the full braid group on $n$-strings of a surface $S$,…

The recent proof by Bigelow and Krammer that the braid groups are linear opens the possibility of applications to the study of knots and links. It was proved by the first author and Menasco that any closed braid representative of the unknot…

As previously known, all 3-manifolds of genus two can be represented by edge-coloured graphs uniquely defined by 6-tuples of integers satisfying simple conditions. The present paper describes an ``elementary transformation'' on these…

In this paper we compute the mapping class group of closed simply-connected 6-manifolds $M$ which look like complete intersections, i.~e.~ $H_2(M;\mathbb Z) \cong \mathbb Z $ and $x^3 \ne 0$ where $x \in H^2(M; \mathbb Z)$ is a generator.…

We analyze the number of ends of the mapping class group of a stable avenue surface. We prove that the mapping class group is one-ended whenever the stable avenue surface has at least one end of discrete type. Our method is to show that the…

Any nontrivial homomorphism from the mapping class group of an orientable surface of genus $g\geq 3$ to $\GL(2g,\C)$ is conjugate to the standard symplectic representation. It is also shown that the mapping class group has no faithful…

In the present paper, we construct a variant of the Burau representation of two generalizations of the classical braid group. For the Gassner representation, we propose an iterative procedure to find and generalize the extension of this…

This article deals with equivalence of links in 3-manifolds of Heegaard genus 2. Starting from a description of such a manifold introduced by Casali et al., that uses 6-tuples of integers and determines a Heegaard decomposition of the…

In this paper we introduce the framed pure braid group on $n$ strands of an oriented surface, a topological generalisation of the pure braid group $P_n$. We give different equivalents definitions for framed pure braid groups and we study…

This paper is a survey of some properties of the braid groups and related groups that lead to questions on mapping class groups.

In this paper, we study matricial representations of certain finitely presented groups with N-generators of order-2. As an application, we consider a group algebra under our representations. Specifically, we characterize the inverses of all…

The odd character variety of a Riemann surface is a moduli space of SO(3) representations of the fundamental group which can be interpreted as the moduli space of stable holomorphic rank 2 bundles of odd degree and fixed determinant. This…

We show that the Lawrence--Krammer representation can be obtained as the quantization of the symmetric square of the Burau representation. This connection allows us to construct new representations of braid groups

The goal of these notes is to prove that the mapping class groups of a closed orientable surface of genus two, with punctures, are not K\"ahler

When Daan Krammer and Stephen Bigelow independently proved that braid groups are linear, they used the Lawrence-Krammer-Bigelow representation for generic values of its variables q and t. The t variable is closely connected to the…

We exhibit a finitely generated group $\M$ whose rational homology is isomorphic to the rational stable homology of the mapping class group. It is defined as a mapping class group associated to a surface $\su$ of infinite genus, and…