English

The Hilden Double Coset Problem in Braid Groups

Geometric Topology 2024-07-22 v3 Group Theory

Abstract

In this paper we provide a solution to the double coset problem for the braid group BnB_n modulo the Hilden subgroup Hn.H_n. This result demonstrates that, as in the case of braid closures, the Link Problem for plat closures is "stably equivalent" to a solvable algebraic problem. A particularly interesting feature of the proof is that, like Garside's solutions to the Word and Conjugacy Problems, it too relies on Garside's decomposition of braids in Bn.B_n.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.02488,
  title  = {The Hilden Double Coset Problem in Braid Groups},
  author = {Seth Hovland},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.02488},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Lemma 3.4 on page 7 is incorrect. This is crucial to the argument. The problem that could not be fixed is if there are parts of hilden subgroup elements that contain parts of powers of the garside element

R2 v1 2026-06-28T14:09:02.523Z