The braidings in the mapping class groups of surfaces (Q2870423)

The disjoint union of all braid groups \(B_g\) forms a braided monoidal category \(\mathcal{B}\). Let \(\Gamma_{g,1}\) denote the mapping class group of a surface of genus \(g\) with 1 boundary component; the pair-of-pants product makes \(\coprod_g \Gamma_{g,1}\) into a monoidal category \(\mathcal{M}\) which turns out to also have a braided structure previously studied by the author in [Tohoku Math. J. (2) 52, No. 2, 309--319 (2000; Zbl 0974.57010)] in terms of generators and relations. In this paper the author studies the braiding on \(\mathcal{M}\) from a more geometrical point of view and constructs a braided monoidal functor \(\phi: \mathcal{B} \to \mathcal{M}\) that is faithful. In particular, the group completions of the classifying spaces are both double loop spaces and the induced map is a map of double loop spaces which must therefore be null homotopic by the results of \textit{Y. Song} and \textit{U. Tillmann} [Math. Ann. 339, No. 2, 377--393 (2007; Zbl 1167.55004)]. The braiding structure on \(\mathcal{M}\) is expressed as a composition of Dehn twists and half-twists.