The Johnson homomorphism and the second cohomology of \(\text{IA}_n\). (Q2571363)

Let \(F_n\) be the free group of rank \(n\). Let \(\text{IA}(F_n )\) be the group of IA-automorphisms of \(F_n\), i.e. the group of automorphisms of \(F_n\) which induce the identity on the Abelianization \(F_n/F^{(2)}_n\) of \(F_n\). Let also \(K^{(i)}_n\) be the group of automorphisms of \(F_n\), which induce the identity on \(F_n /F^{(i+1)}_n\), where \(F^{(i)}_n\) denotes the \(i\)-th term of the lower central series of \(F_n\). There is a conjecture of the reviewer that \(K^{(i)}_n\) is the \(i\)-th term of the lower central series of \(\text{IA}_n\). One of the results of the present paper is that the quotient \(K^{(3)}_n/\text{IA}^{(3)}_n\) is finite, where \(\text{IA}^{(3)}_n\) is the third term of the lower central series of \(\text{IA}_n\). The treatment and the presentation of results is cohomological. We present here, without any further comments on the notation, one of the main results giving the kernel of a certain homomorphism: The kernel of the homomorphism \(\tau^*\colon H^2(\wedge^2H^1(F_n )\otimes H_1(F_n )^*,\mathbb{Q})\to H^2(\text{IA}_n,\mathbb{Q}) \) decomposes into simple \(\text{GL}(n,\mathbb{Q})\)-modules as \[ \ker(\tau^*)\simeq\Phi_{0 ,\dots,0,1,0,-1}\oplus\Phi_{1,0,\dots,0,1,1,-2}. \] The kernel of the homomorphism \(\overline\tau^*\colon H^2((\wedge^2H_1(F_n )\otimes H_1(F_n )^*)/H_1(F_n),\mathbb{Q})\to H^2(\text{OA}_n,\mathbb{Q})\) is the simple module \(\ker(\overline\tau^*)\simeq\Phi_{1,0,\dots,0,1,1,-2}\). -- There is also an interesting corollary relative to the reviewer's conjecture: The quotient \(K^{(3)}_n/\text{IA}^{(3)}_n\) is finite for all \(n\) and trivial for \(n=3\). The rank of the free Abelian group \(K^{(2)}_n/K^{(3)}_n\) is \(\text{rank}(K^{(2)}_n/K^{(3)}_n)=\tfrac 13n^2(n^2-4)+\tfrac 12n(n-1)\).