The stabilizer of 1 in Habegger-Lin's action for string links (Q632476)

String links are a generalisation of pure braids in that they are proper embeddings of \(k\) strings in the \(2\)-disc with \(k\) marked points times the interval, which, however, are not required to be monotonic in the interval direction. They were introduced by \textit{N. Habegger} and \textit{X.-S. Lin} in [J. Am. Math. Soc. 3, No.~2, 389--419 (1990; Zbl 0704.57016)] to study the problem of classifying links up to link homotopy: during a link homotopy self-intersections of a component are allowed, but different components stay disjoint all the time. In the aforementioned paper, Habegger and Lin showed that \(k\) string links up to link homotopy form a group and characterised string links whose closures are link-homotopic links: after defining an action of the group of link homotopy classes of \(2k\) string links on the set of string links, Habegger and Lin proved that two string links have link homotopic closures if and only if they belong to the same orbit of the stabiliser \(S_k(1)\) of the trivial string link for this action. It was already observed by Habegger and Lin that elements of the group of link homotopy classes induce in a natural way automorphisms of the reduced free group (of rank \(2k\)). Recall that the reduced free group \(RF(h)\) is the quotient of the free group (of rank \(h\)) obtained by imposing that each free generator commutes with all its conjugates. The author is concerned with better understanding algebraic properties of the group of link homotopy classes: After proving in [Topology Appl. 157, No.~3, 605--614 (2010; Zbl 1195.57022)] that the elements of \(S_k(1)\) are precisely those that induce automorphisms of the reduced free group of rank \(k\) (seen as a natural quotient of \(RF(2k)\)) which send each generator to a conjugate, in the paper under review he provides a description of the elements of \(S_k(1)\) which induce the identity automorphism on the reduced free group of rank \(k\).