Rigidity of the tree complex (Q2140621)

The complex of trees is defined as such: Let \(\mathcal{S}\) be a surface of genus \(0\) with \(n + 1 \geq 5\) marked points \(\bar{P} = \{P_0, P_1, \ldots, P_n\}\). Let \(P = \bar{P} \setminus P_0\). A \textit{tree} in \(\mathcal{S}\) is a pair \((T_0, \phi)\) where \(T_0\) is an abstract tree and \(\phi\) is an embedding \(\phi : T_0 \hookrightarrow \mathcal{S}\) such that: \begin{itemize} \item the set \(P\) is contained in the set \(\phi(T_0)\); \item the set \(\phi^{-1}(P)\) is contained in the set of vertices of \(T_0\); \item the set of vertices of \(T_0\) with valence at most \(2\) is contained in \(\phi^{-1}(P)\). \end{itemize} Two trees \((T,f)\) and \((T',f')\) are equivalent if \(T = T'\) and \(f\) is isotopic to \(f'\) in \(\mathcal{S}\). The \textit{complex of trees} (denoted by \(\mathscr{T}_n\)) is a simplicial complex where vertices are equivalence classes of trees in \(\mathcal{S}\) and where a set of vertices \(\{T_1, T_2, \ldots, T_k\}\) spans a \(k\)-simplex if (up to relabeling) for each \(i > 0\) the vertex \(T_i\) is a forest collapse of \(T_{i-1}\). In the article under review the authors show that for all \(n \geq 4\), the automorphism group of the complex of trees coincides with the extended mapping class group of \(\mathcal{S}\) which fixes a distinguished marked point. That is, it is shown that \(\text{Aut}(\mathscr{T}_n) \cong \text{Mod}^\pm(\mathcal{S},*)\).