Geometric representations of the braid groups
braid groupgraph theorygroup actionmapping class groupNielsen Thurston's classificationrepresentationsurfacesurface diffeomorphism
Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to group theory (20-02) Automorphisms of infinite groups (20E36) Fundamental groups and their automorphisms (group-theoretic aspects) (20F34) Braid groups; Artin groups (20F36) Other groups related to topology or analysis (20F38) Compact Riemann surfaces and uniformization (30F10) Fundamental group, presentations, free differential calculus (57M05) Topological methods in group theory (57M07)
Let $\Sigma_{g,b}$ be the orientable connected compact surface of genus $g$ with $b$ boundary components, $\mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$ the associated mapping class group globally preserving each boundary component and the mapping class group $\mathcal{M}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b}, \partial \Sigma_{g,b})$ preserving the boundary pointwise. A geometric representation is any representation of a group in the mapping class group of some surface $\Sigma_{g,b}$. The aim of this paper is to describe all geometric representations of the braid group $B_n$ with $n \geq 6$ strands in $\mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$ subject to the only condition that $g \leq n/2$. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEA geometric representation is called cyclic if its image is a cyclic group. Two Dehn twists $T_a$ and $T_b$ along two distinct curves $a$ and $b$ satisfy $T_a T_b T_a = T_b T_a T_b$ if and only if the curves $a$ and $b$ meet in one point, whereas they commute if and only if the curves $a$ and $b$ are disjoint. A monodromy representation of $B_n$ is a geometric representation of $B_n$ which sends the standard generators $\tau_1, \tau_2, \dots, \tau_{n-1}$ of $B_n$ to distinct Dehn twists. A monodromy representation of $B_n$ can be characterized by the data of an integer $\varepsilon \in \{ \pm 1 \}$ and an ordered $(n-1)$-tuple of curves $(a_1, a_2, \dots, a_{n-1})$ such that for all $i, j \in \{ 1, 2, \dots, n-1 \}$, the curves $a_i$ and $a_j$ are disjoint when $|i-j| \not= 1$, and intersect in exactly one point when $|i-j|= 1$. So the monodromy representation $\rho$ associated to the pair $((a_1, a_2, \dots, a_{n-1}), \varepsilon)$ is defined by setting $\rho(\tau_i) = T_{a_i}^{\varepsilon}$ for all $i \leq n-1$. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINELet $n \geq 3$ be an integer, $G$ be any group, $\rho$ a homomorphism from $B_n$ to $G$ and $w$ an element lying in the centralizer of $\rho(B_n)$ in $G$. The transvection $\rho_1$ of $\rho$ with direction $w$ is the homomorphism defined by setting $\rho_1(\tau_i) = \rho(\tau_i) w$ for all $i \leq n-1$. A transvection of a monodromy representation $\rho$ of $B_n$ is thus characterized by a unique triple $((a_1, a_2, \dots, a_{n-1}), \varepsilon, W)$, where $W$ is a mapping class which preserves each curve $a_i$, $i \leq n-1$, and is defined by setting $\rho(\tau_i) = T_{a_i}^{\varepsilon} W$ for all $i \leq n-1$. By $\Sigma(\rho)$ is denoted the tubular neighborhood of the union of the curves $a_i$ where $i$ ranges from 1 to $n-1$. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINETheorem 1 is the first main result of the present paper says the following. Let $n \geq $ be an integer and $\Sigma_{g,b}$ a surface with $g \leq n/2$ and $b \geq 0$. Then any representation $\rho$ from $B_n$ to $\mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$ is either cyclic, or is a transvection of a monodromy representation. Moreover, such transvections of monodromy representation exist if and only if $g \geq n/2 - 1$. NEWLINENEWLINEThis result still holds when we consider $\mathcal{M}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b}, \partial \Sigma_{g,b})$ instead of $\mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$. \par It is possible to characterize the faithfulness of the geometric representation of $B_n$. Theorem 3 proves that if $n \geq 6$ and $\Sigma_{g,b}$ a surface with $g \leq n/2$ and $\rho$ be a homomorphism from $B_n$ to $\mathcal{M}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b}, \partial \Sigma_{g,b})$ or to $\mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$, then NEWLINENEWLINE\begin{itemize} \item[(i)] The homomorphism $\rho : B_n \to \mathcal{M}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b}, \partial \Sigma_{g,b})$ is injective if and only if it is a transvection of a monodromy homomorphism such that the boundary components of $\Sigma(\rho)$ do not bound any disk in $\Sigma$. \item[(ii)] The homomorphism $\rho : B_n \to \mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$ is injective if and only if it is a transvection of a monodromy homomorphism such that boundary components of $\Sigma(\rho)$ do not bound any disk in $\Sigma_{g,b}$ and at least one boundary component of $\Sigma(\rho)$ is not isotopic to any boundary component of $\Sigma_{g,b}$. \end{itemize}NEWLINENEWLINEFor four families of groups: the braid groups $B_n$ for $n \geq 6$, the Artin groups of type $D_n$ for all $n \geq 6$, the mapping class groups $\mathcal{PM}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b})$ and $\mathcal{M}\mathrm{od}(\Sigma_{g,b}, \partial \Sigma_{g,b})$, for $g \geq 2$ and $b \geq 0$, the author describes the structure of the sets of the endomorphisms of these groups, their automorphisms and their outer automorphism groups. Also he describes the set of the homomorphisms $B_n \to B_m$ with $m \leq n + 1$ and the set of the homomorphisms between mapping class groups of surfaces (possibly with boundary). Finally, he describes the set of the geometric representations of the Artin groups of type $E_n$ ($n \in \{ 6, 7, 8 \}$).
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