Related papers: An infinite genus mapping class group and stable c…

It is a classical result of Powell that pure mapping class groups of connected, orientable surfaces of finite type and genus at least three are perfect. In stark contrast, we construct nontrivial homomorphisms from infinite-genus mapping…

We define a family of groups that include the mapping class group of a genus g surface with one boundary component and the integral symplectic group Sp(2g,Z). We then prove that these groups are finitely generated. These groups, which we…

In this work we compute the first integral cohomology of the pure mapping class group of a non-orientable surface of infinite topological type and genus at least 3. To this purpose, we also prove several other results already known for…

We completely classify the locally finite, infinite graphs with pure mapping class groups admitting a coarsely bounded generating set. We also study algebraic properties of the pure mapping class group: We establish a semidirect product…

Let $S$ be an orientable, connected surface with infinitely-generated fundamental group. The main theorem states that if the genus of $S$ is finite and at least 4, then the isomorphism type of the pure mapping class group associated to $S$,…

We prove that the homology of the mapping class groups of non-orientable surfaces stabilizes with the genus of the surface. Combining our result with recent work of Madsen and Weiss, we obtain that the classifying space of the stable…

We describe sufficient conditions which guarantee that a finite set of mapping classes generate a right-angled Artin group quasi-isometrically embedded in the mapping class group. Moreover, under these conditions, the orbit map to…

Given an oriented surface of positive genus with finitely many punctures, we classify the finite orbits of the mapping class group action on the moduli space of semisimple complex special linear two dimensional representations of the…

We show that the pure mapping class group is uniformly perfect for a certain class of infinite type surfaces with noncompact boundary components. We then combine this result with recent work in the remaining cases to give a complete…

Let $p: S\to S_g$ be a finite covering of an orientable closed surface of genus $g$. We prove that, for $g\geq 3$, the rational homology group $H_1(S;{\mathbb Q})$ is generated by cycles supported on simple closed curves $\gamma\subset S$…

We consider mapping class groups \Gamma(M) = pi_0 Diff(M fix \partial M) of smooth compact simply connected oriented 4-manifolds M bounded by a collection of 3-spheres. We show that if M contains CP^2 (with either orientation) as a…

Let $\Gamma$ be a finite-index subgroup of the mapping class group of a closed genus $g$ surface that contains the Torelli group. For instance, $\Gamma$ can be the level $L$ subgroup or the spin mapping class group. We show that…

The genus spectrum of a finite group $G$ is the set of all $g\geq 2$ such that $G$ acts faithfully and orientation-preserving on a closed compact orientable surface of genus $g$. This article is an overview of some results relating 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…

We completely classify the orientable infinite-type surfaces $S$ such that $\operatorname{PMap}(S)$, the pure mapping class group, has automatic continuity. This classification includes surfaces with noncompact boundary. In the case of…

We prove that, for any infinite-type surface $S$, the integral homology of the closure of the compactly-supported mapping class group $\overline{\mathrm{PMap}_c(S)}$ and of the Torelli group $\mathcal{T}(S)$ is uncountable in every positive…

We prove that the first integral cohomology of pure mapping class groups of infinite type genus one surfaces is trivial. For genus zero surfaces we prove that not every homomorphism to $\mathbb{Z}$ factors through a sphere with finitely…

Let $M$ be either $S^2\times S^2$ or the one point blow-up $\cp# \bcp$ of $\cp$. In both cases $M$ carries a family of symplectic forms $\om_\la$, where $\la > -1$ determines the cohomology class $[\om_\la]$. This paper calculates the…

A topological group $G$ is topologically normally generated if there exists $g \in G$ such that the normal closure of $g$ is dense in $G$. Let $S$ be a tame, infinite type surface whose mapping class group $\mathrm{Map}(S)$ is generated by…

We construct an infinite family of homologous, non-isotopic, symplectic surfaces of any genus greater than one in a certain class of closed, simply connected, symplectic four-manifolds. Our construction is the first example of this…