Related papers: An extension of the Burau representation to a mapp…

We consider a central extension of the mapping class group of a surface with a collection of framed colored points. The Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev TQFTs associated to SU(2) and SO(3) induce linear representations of this group. We show that…

We introduce and study a family of groups $\mathbf{BB}_n$, called the blocked-braid groups, which are quotients of Artin's braid groups $\mathbf{B}_n$, and have the corresponding symmetric groups $\Sigma_n$ as quotients. They are defined by…

Based on a normal form for braid group elements suggested by Dehornoy, we prove several representations of braid groups by automorphisms of a free group to be faithful. This includes a simple proof of the standard Artin's representation…

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…

The twin group $T_n$ is a right angled Coxeter group generated by $n- 1$ involutions and having only far commutativity relations. These groups can be thought of as planar analogues of Artin braid groups. In this note, we study some…

The Burau representation of braid groups and knot Floer homology share a link to the Fox calculus. We make this connection explicit, with the following outcome: if $B$ is the full Burau matrix of any braid, and $A$ is any square submatrix…

We show that many normal subgroups of the braid group modulo its centre, and of the mapping class group of a sphere with marked points, have the property that their automorphism and abstract commensurator groups are mapping class groups of…

Braid groups are an important and flexible tool used in several areas of science, such as Knot Theory (Alexander's theorem), Mathematical Physics (Yang-Baxter's equation) and Algebraic Geometry (monodromy invariants). In this note we will…

We consider subgroups of the braid groups which are generated by $k$-th powers of the standard generators and prove that any infinite intersection (with even $k$) is trivial. This is motivated by some conjectures of Squier concerning the…

We establish some new cases of Artin's conjecture. Our results apply to Galois representations over $\Q$ with image $S_5$ satisfying certain local hypotheses, the most important of which is that complex conjugation is conjugate to…

We study a wide range of homologically-defined representations of surface braid groups and of mapping class groups of surfaces, including the Lawrence-Bigelow representations of the classical braid groups. These representations naturally…

In 2003, Fomin and Zelevinsky proved that finite type cluster algebras can be classified by Dynkin diagrams. Then in 2013, Barot and Marsh defined the presentation of a reflection group associated to a Dynkin diagram in terms of an…

Chiral conformal blocks in a rational conformal field theory are a far going extension of Gauss hypergeometric functions. The associated monodromy representations of Artin's braid group capture the essence of the modern view on the subject,…

Let $X$ be a smooth projective integral variety over a finitely generated field $k$ of characteristic $p>0$. We show that the finiteness of the exponent of the $p$-primary part of $\mathrm{Br}(X_{k^s})^{G_k}$ is equivalent to the Tate…

In 1996, Tong, Yang and Ma defined a family of representations of the braid group which have the same dimensions as the (unreduced) Burau representations but are not equivalent. The Burau representation was defined homologically and…

This paper aims to generalize Artin's ideas to establish an one-to-one correspondence between the orbit braid group $B^{orb}_n(\mathbb{C},\mathbb{Z}_p)$ and a quotient of a group formed by some particular homeomorphisms of a punctured…

In this paper, we classify homomorphisms from the braid group of $n$ strands to the mapping class group of a genus $g$ surface. In particular, we show that when $g<n-2$, all representations are either cyclic or standard. Our result is sharp…

In this paper we construct a projective action of certain arithmetic group on the derived category of coherent sheaves on an abelian scheme $A$, which is analogous to Weil representation of the symplectic group. More precisely, the…

We give a description of the centralizer algebras for tensor powers of spin objects in the pre-modular categories $SO(N)_2$ (for $N$ odd) and $O(N)_2$ (for $N$ even) in terms of quantum $(n-1)$-tori, via non-standard deformations of…

We show that a large class of right-angled Artin groups (in particular, those with planar complementary defining graph) can be embedded quasi-isometrically in pure braid groups and in the group of area preserving diffeomorphisms of the disk…