On classifying spaces for the family of virtually cyclic subgroups in mapping class groups (Q1708373)

Given a surface \(S\) let us consider the family of all virtually cyclic groups of the mapping class group of the surface \(\Gamma(S)\). The goal of the paper is to provide a model for the classifying space of the family of the above subgroups and then derive results from the model. The main result is: Main Theorem. Let \(S\) be an orientable compact surface with finitely many punctures and \(\chi(S) <0\). Let \(m\geq 3\), then (1) \(gd\Gamma_m(S) \leq vcd(\Gamma(S)) + 1\); (2) Let \([\Gamma(S) : \Gamma_m(S)]\) be the index of \(\Gamma_m(S)\) in \(\Gamma(S)\), then \(gd\Gamma(S) \leq [\Gamma(S) : \Gamma_m(S)]\cdot gd\Gamma_m(S)\) \(\leq [\Gamma(S) : \Gamma_m(S)]\cdot (vcd(\Gamma(S))+1)\), where \(vcd(\Gamma(S))\) is the virtual cohomological dimension of \(\Gamma(S)\). We point out that the bound in (1) is sharp. Here \(\Gamma_m(S)\) denotes the subgroup of the elements of \(\Gamma(S)\) which act trivially on \(H_1(S,\mathbb Z/m)\), \textit{gd} the geometric dimension and \textit{vcd} the virtually cohomological dimension. This problem for various groups \(G\) has been extensively studied. For the case of mapping class groups the present work extends results by \textit{D. Degrijse} and \textit{N. Petrosyan} [Groups Geom. Dyn. 9, No. 4, 1231--1265 (2015; Zbl 1331.18023)]. The paper is well organised and contains in detail most of the material used to achieve the main results, like for example results about mapping class groups. The authors observe that in order to obtain the main result they make use of the following information below considered as one of the most interesting contributions of the work: Proposition 2. Let \(S\) be an orientable compact surface with finitely many punctures and \(\chi(X)<0\). Let \(m\geq 3\), then the group \(\Gamma_m(S)\) satisfies the property that every infinite virtually cyclic subgroup is contained in a unique maximal virtually cyclic subgroup.