Invariants and structures of the homology cobordism group of homology cylinders (Q276583)

Let \(\Sigma\) be a compact connected oriented surface of genus \(g\geq 0\) with \(n \geq 1\) boundary components. A \textit{homology cylinder over} \(\Sigma\) is a triple \((M,i_+,i_-)\) where \(M\) is a compact oriented \(3\)-manifold, \(i_\pm: \Sigma \to M\) is an embedding which induces an isomorphism in homology, and \(\partial M\) is the union of \(i_+(\Sigma)\), \(-i_-(\Sigma)\) and a copy of \(\partial \Sigma \times [-1,1]\) connecting \(i_-(\partial \Sigma)\) to \(i_+(\partial \Sigma)\). The set \(\mathcal{C}(\Sigma)\) of (homeomorphism classes) of homology cylinders over \(\Sigma\) has a monoid structure, and its quotient \[ \mathcal{H}(\Sigma) := \mathcal{C}(\Sigma)/\sim_H \] by the relation \(\sim_H\) of \(4\)-dimensional homology cobordism, is a group. Note that the mapping cylinder construction defines an embedding of the mapping class group of \(\Sigma\) into \(\mathcal{H}(\Sigma)\). The study of this ``enlarged'' mapping class group for \(g>0\) and \(n=1\) started in the works of \textit{S. Garoufalidis} and \textit{J. Levine} [Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 73, 173--203 (2005; Zbl 1086.57013)]; for \(g=0\) and \(n=1\), \(\mathcal{H}(\Sigma)\) is essentially the homology cobordism group of homology \(3\)-spheres. Let now \(F\) be the fundamental group of \(\Sigma\), and denote by \(F= F_1 \supset F_2 \supset F_3 \supset \cdots\) its lower central series. The paper under review introduces a family of crossed homomorphisms \[ \big\{\widetilde{\mu}_q: \mathcal{H}(\Sigma) \longrightarrow (F/F_q)^{2g+n-1}\big\}_{q\geq 1} \] which depends on the choice of an appropriate basis of the free group \(F\). This family is a mutual generalization of the Milnor invariants of string-links (for \(g=0\)) and the Johnson homomorphisms of homology cylinders (for \(n=1\)). Thus the decreasing sequence \[ \mathcal{H} = \mathcal{H}(1) \supset \mathcal{H}(2) \supset \mathcal{H}(3) \supset \cdots \] defined by \( \mathcal{H}:= \mathcal{H}(\Sigma)\) and \(\mathcal{H}(q) := \ker \widetilde{\mu}_q\), can be regarded as a natural generalization of the so-called \textit{Milnor filtration} (for \(g=0\)) and \textit{Johnson filtration} (for \(n=1\)). By generalizing what is known about these two filtrations, the author shows that each \(\mathcal{H}(q)/\mathcal{H}(q+1)\) is a free abelian group, and estimates of its rank are given. Next, she adapts to the setting of homology cylinders some homology cobordism invariants with values in Witt groups, which have been introduced by Cha for closed \(3\)-manifolds coming with certain towers of iterated abelian covers [\textit{J. C. Cha}, J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 12, No. 3, 555--610 (2010; Zbl 1195.57012)]. Several interesting results are obtained by this method including the remarkable fact that, when \(2g+n >2\), the intersection of the filtration \(\{\mathcal{H}(q)\}_{q\geq 1}\) has an infinite-rank abelianization.