English

Topological normal generation of big mapping class groups

Group Theory 2026-02-04 v3 Geometric Topology

Abstract

A topological group GG is topologically normally generated if there exists gGg \in G such that the normal closure of gg is dense in GG. Let SS be a tame, infinite type surface whose mapping class group Map(S)\mathrm{Map}(S) is generated by a coarsely bounded set (CB generated). We prove that if the end space of SS is countable, then Map(S)\mathrm{Map}(S) is topologically normally generated if and only if SS is uniquely self-similar. Moreover, when the end space of SS is uncountable, we provide a sufficient condition under which Map(S)\mathrm{Map}(S) is topologically normally generated. As a consequence, we construct uncountably many examples of surfaces that are not telescoping yet have topologically normally generated mapping class groups. Additionally, we establish the semidirect product structure of FMap(S)\mathrm{FMap}(S), the subgroup of Map(S)\mathrm{Map}(S) that pointwisely fixes all maximal ends that each is isolated in the set of maximal ends of SS. This result leads to a proof that the minimum number of topological normal generators of Map(S)\mathrm{Map}(S) is bounded both above and below by constants that depend only on the topology of SS. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the upper bound grows quadratically with respect to this constant.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.12700,
  title  = {Topological normal generation of big mapping class groups},
  author = {Juhun Baik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.12700},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

25 pages, 9 figures, Comments are welcome!

R2 v1 2026-06-28T18:50:11.035Z