Related papers: The topological interpretation of the core group o…

We argue that for a smooth surface S, considered as a ramified cover over the projective plane branched over a nodal-cuspidal curve B one could use the structure of the fundamental group of the complement of the branch curve to understand…

We investigate the representation theory of the polynomial core of the quantum Teichmuller space of a punctured surface S. This is a purely algebraic object, closely related to the combinatorics of the simplicial complex of ideal cell…

We study locally flat, compact, oriented surfaces in $4$-manifolds whose exteriors have infinite cyclic fundamental group. We give algebraic topological criteria for two such surfaces, with the same genus $g$, to be related by an ambient…

We take the fundamental group of the complement of the branch curve of a generic projection induced from canonical embedding of a surface. This group is stable on connected components of moduli spaces of surfaces. Since for many classes of…

Introducing the notion of stabilized fundamental group for the complement of a branch curve in $CP^2$, we define effectively computable invariants of symplectic 4-manifolds that generalize those previously introduced by Moishezon and…

Let $\Gamma_g$ be the fundamental group of a closed connected orientable surface of genus $g\geq2$. We introduce a combinatorial structure of "core surfaces", that represent subgroups of $\Gamma_g$. These structures are (usually)…

Let S be an immersed horizontal surface in a 3-dimensional graph manifold. We show that the fundamental group of the surface S is quadratically distorted whenever the surface is virtually embedded (i.e., separable) and is exponentially…

We derive presentation and relations for a group of compact Riemann surface that is given as branched cover of the sphere. In the case that one of the permutations is of full cycle of the form $(1...n)$ we derive a straightforward process…

The article starts with some introductory material about resolution graphs of normal surface singularities (definitions, topological/homological properties, etc). We then discuss the case when the normal surface singularity is an N-fold…

We define new topological invariants for Anosov representations and study them in detail for maximal representations of the fundamental group of a closed oriented surface into the symplectic group.

Consider a connected orientable surface $S$ of infinite topological type, i.e. with infinitely-generated fundamental group. We describe the large-scale geometry of arbitrary connected subgraphs of the arc complex $A(S)$ and curve complex…

Consider a finite, regular cover $Y\to X$ of finite graphs, with associated deck group $G$. We relate the topology of the cover to the structure of $H_1(Y;\mathbb{C})$ as a $G$-representation. A central object in this study is the {\em…

We are concerned with orderable groups and particularly those with orderings invariant not only under multiplication, but also under a given automorphism or family of automorphisms. Several applications to topology are given: we prove that…

Some generalizations and variations of the Fintushel-Stern rim surgery are known to produce smoothly knotted surfaces. We show that if the fundamental groups of their complements are cyclic, then these surfaces are topologically unknotted.…

We compute the fundamental group of the Galois cover of a surface of degree~$8$, with singularities of degree $4$, whose degeneration envelope is isomorphic to an octahedron. The group is shown to be a metabelian group of order $2^{23}$.…

By considering appropriate finite covering spaces of closed non-orientable surfaces, we construct linear representations of their mapping class group which have finite index image in certain big arithmetic groups.

Motivated by recent results on diffeomorphisms of 4-manifolds, this paper investigates fundamental groups of spaces of embeddings of $S^1\times D^3$ in 4-manifolds. The majority of work goes into the case of framed immersed circles.

Let $p:\Sigma'\to\Sigma$ be a finite Galois cover, possibly branched, with Galois group $G$. We are interested in the structure of the cohomology of $\Sigma'$ as a module over $G$. We treat the cases of branched and unbranched covers…

We study the first homology group of the mapping class group and Torelli group with coefficients in the first rational homology group of the universal abelian cover of the surface. We prove two contrasting results: for surfaces with one…

Frucht showed that, for any finite group $G$, there exists a cubic graph such that its automorphism group is isomorphic to $G$. For groups generated by two elements we simplify his construction to a graph with fewer nodes. In the general…