A cofinite universal space for proper actions for mapping class groups

Publication date 2 September 2010

Abstract: We prove that the mapping class group

G a m m a_{g, n}

for surfaces of negative Euler characteristic has a cofinite universal space

E

for proper actions (the resulting quotient is a finite

C W

-complex). The approach is to construct a truncated Teichmueller space

T_{g, n} (e p s i l o n)

by introducing a lower bound for the length of shortest closed geodesics and showing that

T_{g, n} (e p s i l o n)

is a

G a m m a_{g, n}

equivariant deformation retract of the Teichmueller space

T_{g, n}

. The existence of such a cofinite universal space is important in the study of the cohomology of the group

g a g

. As an application, we note that there are only finitely many conjugacy classes of finite subgroups of

G a m m a_{g, n}

. Another application is that the rational Novikov conjecture in K-theory holds for

G a m m a_{g, n}

.

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