Related papers: An extension of the Burau representation to a mapp…
Artin groups of finite type are not as well understood as braid groups. This is due to the additional geometric properties of braid groups coming from their close connection to mapping class groups. For each Artin group of finite type, we…
We investigate a family of (reducible) representations of Artin's braid groups corresponding to a specific solution to the Yang-Baxter equation. The images of the braid groups under these representations are finite groups, and we identify…
We investigate braid group representations associated with unitary braided vector spaces, focusing on a conjecture that such representations should have virtually abelian images in general and finite image provided the braiding has finite…
In this paper we study irreducible matrix representations of the welded braid group $WB_n$, also known as the group of conjugating automorphisms of a free group $F_n.$ We prove that $WB_n$ has no irreducible representations of dimension…
Virtual knots arise in the study of Gauss diagrams and Vassiliev invariants of usual knots. Virtual braids correspond naturally to virtual knots. We consider the group of virtual braids on n strings VB_n and its Burau representation, in…
This article is a survey on the braid groups, the Artin groups, and the Garside groups. It is a presentation, accessible to non-experts, of various topological and algebraic aspects of these groups. It is also a report on three points of…
The main result of this article is that any braided (resp. annular, planar) diagram group $D$ splits as a short exact sequence $1 \to R \to D \to S \to 1$ where $R$ is a subgroup of some right-angled Artin group and $S$ a subgroup of…
From a group $H$ and a non-trivial element $h$ of $H$, we define a representation $\rho: B_n \to \Aut(G)$, where $B_n$ denotes the braid group on $n$ strands, and $G$ denotes the free product of $n$ copies of $H$. Such a representation…
In a previous work [11], the author considered a representation of the braid group \rho: B_n\to GL_m(\Bbb Z[q^{\pm 1},t^{\pm 1}]) (m=n(n-1)/2), and proved it to be faithful for n=4. Bigelow [3] then proved the same representation to be…
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…
In arXiv:0910.1727 we find certain finite homomorphic images of Artin braid group into appropriate symmetric groups, which a posteriori are extensions of the symmetric group on n letters by an abelian group. The main theorem of this paper…
The braided Thompson group $\mathcal B$ is an asymptotic mapping class group of a sphere punctured along the standard Cantor set, endowed with a rigid structure. Inspired from the case of finite type surfaces we consider a Hatcher-Thurston…
We propose a family of new representations of the braid groups on surfaces that extend linear representations of the braid groups on a disc such as the Burau representation and the Lawrence-Krammer-Bigelow representation.
Finite Temperley-Lieb (TL) algebras are diagram-algebra quotients of (the group algebra of) the famous Artin's braid group $B_N$, while the affine TL algebras arise as diagram algebras from a generalized version of the braid group. We study…
In a seminal paper, Brin demonstrates that the outerautomorphism group of Thompson group $T$ is isomorphic to the cyclic group of order two. In this article, building on characterisation of automorphisms of the Higman-Thompson groups…
We construct a family of infinite simple groups that we call \emph{twisted Brin-Thompson groups}, generalizing Brin's higher-dimensional Thompson groups $sV$ ($s\in\mathbb{N}$). We use twisted Brin-Thompson groups to prove a variety of…
Let $W$ be a finite group and $T$ be an abelian group. Consider an extension $0 \ra T \ra N \ra W \ra 0$. For a smooth projective curve $X$, we give a precise description of the fiber of the quotient by $T$ map $q_T: \cM_X(N) \ra \cM_X(W)$…
We develop an analogy between right-angled Artin groups and mapping class groups through the geometry of their actions on the extension graph and the curve graph respectively. The central result in this paper is the fact that each…
Following Boardman-Vogt, McDuff, Segal, and others, we construct a monoidal topological groupoid or space of finite subsets of the plane, and interpret the Burau representation of knot theory as a topological quantum field theory defined on…
This work presents an approach towards the representation theory of the braid groups $B_n$. We focus on finite-dimensional representations over the field of Laurent series which can be obtained from representations of infinitesimal braids,…