English

Flat braid groups, right-angled Artin groups, and commensurability

Group Theory 2025-11-05 v1

Abstract

For every n1n\geq 1, the flat braid group FBn\mathrm{FB}_n is an analogue of the braid group BnB_n that can be described as the fundamental group of the configuration space {{x1,,xn}Rn/Sym(n)there exist at most two indices i,j such that xi=xj}.\left\{ \{x_1, \ldots, x_n \} \in \mathbb{R}^n / \mathrm{Sym}(n) \mid \text{there exist at most two indices $i,j$ such that } x_i=x_j \right\}. Alternatively, FBn\mathrm{FB}_n can also be described as the right-angled Coxeter group C(Pn2opp)C(P_{n-2}^\mathrm{opp}), where Pn2oppP_{n-2}^\mathrm{opp} denotes the opposite graph of the path Pn2P_{n-2} of length n2n-2. In this article, we prove that, for every n=7n= 7 or 11\geq 11, PFBn\mathrm{PFB}_n is not virtually a right-angled Artin group, disproving a conjecture of Naik, Nanda, and Singh. In the opposite direction, we observe that FB7\mathrm{FB}_7 turns out to be commensurable to the right-angled Artin group A(P4)A(P_4).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.17917,
  title  = {Flat braid groups, right-angled Artin groups, and commensurability},
  author = {Anthony Genevois},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.17917},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

27 pages, 11 figures. Comments are welcome!

R2 v1 2026-06-28T21:56:51.632Z