The generalized Dehn twist along a figure eight (Q2852535)

The work under review is in some sense a continuation of the work by \textit{N. Kawazumi} and \textit{Y. Kuno} [``The logarithms of the Dehn twists'', \url{arXiv:1008.5017}]. There the authors consider a compact orientable surface of genus \(g\) with one boundary component, denoted by \(\Sigma\). An invariant \(L^{\theta}\) for unoriented loops on \(\Sigma\) was introduced as a derivation on \(\hat T\) (where \(\hat T\) is the completed tensor algebra generated by the first rational homology group of the surface \(\Sigma\)).NEWLINENEWLINEAs above \(\Sigma\) denotes a compact orientable surface of genus \(g\) with one boundary component. In the present work, by means of the \textit{Magnus expansion} \(\theta\), the author obtains an injective group homomorphism, called the \textit{total Johnson map}, NEWLINE\[NEWLINET^{\theta}: M_{g,1} \to Aut(\hat T)NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(M_{g,1}\) is the mapping class group of \(\Sigma\). It turns out that if the curve \(C\) is a simple curve then \(T^{\theta}(t_c)=e^{-L^{\theta}(C)}\) holds, where \(t_C\) is the Dehn twist along the simple curve \(C\). As pointed out by the authors, the right-hand side of the equation is an automorphism of \(\hat T\) for any loop \(\gamma\), and it is called the \textit{generalized Dehn twist} and denoted by \(t_{\gamma}\). When an automorphism is in the image of the injective homomorphism above, then it is called a mapping class. The first main result of the paper is to show:NEWLINENEWLINETheorem 3.9: Suppose that \(t_{\gamma}\) is a mapping class. Then there is a diffeomorphism representing \(T_{\gamma}\) whose support lies in a regular neighborhood of \(\gamma\).NEWLINENEWLINEThen the authors completely classify the figure eights on the surface \(\Sigma\), up to homotopy, where roughly speaking a figure eight is an immersed loop with only one double point such that the loop is neither homotopic to a simple curve nor to the the square of a simple curve. Then they show:NEWLINENEWLINETheorem 5.1: Let \(\gamma\) be a figure eight on \(\Sigma\). Then \(t_{\gamma}\) is not a mapping class.NEWLINENEWLINEThey use as one of the main tools Lie algebras. Most of the background, as well as results from closely related papers are provided.