Related papers: The Burau representation is not faithful for n = 5
\begin{abstract} The reduced Burau representation is a natural action of the braid group $B_n$ on the first homology group $H_1({\tilde{D}}_n;\mathbb{Z})$ of a suitable infinite cyclic covering space ${\tilde{D}}_n$ of the $n$--punctured…
The problem of faithfulness of the (reduced) Burau representation for $n =4$ is known to be equivalent to the problem of whether certain two matrices $A$ and $B$ generate a free group of rank two. It is known that $A^3$ and $B^3$ generate a…
A long-standing open problem is to determine for which values of n the Burau representation Psi_n of the braid group B_n is faithful. Following work of Moody, Long-Paton, and Bigelow, the remaining open case is n = 4. One criterion states…
The Burau representation enables to define many other representations of the braid group $B_n$ by the topological operation of ``cabling braids''. We show here that these representations split into copies of the Burau representation itself…
We study the kernel of the evaluated Burau representation through the braid element $\sigma_i \sigma_{i+1} \sigma_i$. The element is significant as a part of the standard braid relation. We establish the form of this element's image raised…
We present an algorithm that, given a prime $p$ as input, determines whether or not the Burau representation of the 3-strand braid group modulo $p$ is faithful. We also prove that the representation is indeed faithful when $p\le 13$.…
We discuss the extension of the faithfulness question for the Burau representation of braid groups to the case of Artin--Tits groups. We prove that the Burau representation is not faithful in affine type $\tilde{A_3}$, and not faithful over…
We study two classical representations of Artin's braid group and their modulo $p$ reductions. We use topological methods to show that the Gassner representation $\tau_n: B_n\to\text{GL}_n(\mathbb{Z}[t_1^{\pm 1}, \ldots, t_n^{\pm 1}])$ is…
This work discusses the open problem of the faithfulness of the reduced Burau representation for $n=4$. Birman showed that in order to prove this representation is faithful, it is sufficient to find two matrices $A$ and $B$ that generate a…
The reduced Burau representation $V_n$ of the braid group $B_n$ is obtained from the action of $B_n$ on the homology of an infinite cyclic cover of the $n$-punctured disc. In this note, we calculate $H_*(B_n;V_n)$ as a module over the…
We establish strong constraints on the kernel of the (reduced) Burau representation $\beta_4:B_4\to \text{GL}_3\left(\mathbb{Z}\left[q^{\pm 1}\right]\right)$ of the braid group $B_4$. We develop a theory to explicitly determine the entries…
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…
We construct a linear representation of the group IA(F_n) of IA-automorphisms of a free group F_n, an extension of the Gassner representation of the pure braid group P_n. Although the problem of faithfulness of the Gassner representation is…
The reduced Burau representation $V_n$ of the braid group $B_n$ is obtained from the action of $B_n$ on the homology of an infinite cyclic cover of the disc with $n$ punctures. The group homology $H_*(B_n;V_n)$ of braid groups with…
We establish a link between the new theory of $q$-deformed rational numbers and the classical Burau representation of the braid group $\mathrm{B}_3$. We apply this link to the open problem of classification of faithful complex…
We establish relations between both the classical and the dual Garside structures of the braid group and the Burau representation. Using the classical structure, we formulate a non-vanishing criterion for the Burau representation of the…
We give a method to produce faithful representations of the groups $G(n,m)=\langle X, Y \ \vert \ X^m = Y^n \rangle$ in $\mathrm{GL}_2(\mathbb{C}[t^{\pm 1}, q^{\pm 1}])$. These groups are Garside groups and the Garside normal forms of…
We use a geometric approach to show that the reduced Burau representation specialized at roots of unity has another incarnation as the monodromy representation of a moduli space of Euclidean cone metrics on the sphere, as described by…
In this paper we survey some work on representations of $B_n$ given by the induced action on a homology module of some space. One of these, called the Lawrence-Krammer representation, recently came to prominence when it was shown to be…
The braid groups B_n can be defined as the mapping class group of the n-punctured disc. The Lawrence-Krammer representation of the braid group B_n is the induced action on a certain twisted second homology of the space of unordered pairs of…