Cohomology of the hyperelliptic Torelli group (Q375682)

The hyperelliptic Torelli group of a closed orientable surface of genus \(g\) is the subgroup of elements of its mapping class group which commute with the isotopy class of a fixed hyperelliptic involution and act trivially on the first homology of the surface. The first main result of the paper states that the cohomological dimension of the hyperelliptic Torelli group is \(g-1\), for \(g \geq 1\) (it is known that the cohomological dimension of the Torelli group itself is \(3g-5\), and that the virtual cohomological dimension of the mapping class group is \(4g-5\)). \smallskip \textit{M. Bestvina, K.-U. Bux} and \textit{D. Margalit} proved that the top-dimensional homology of the Torelli group is infinitely generated [J. Am. Math. Soc. 23, No. 1, 61--105 (2010; Zbl 1233.20033)]. Elaborating on this, the authors then go on to prove that, for \(g \geq 2\), the homology group in the top dimension \(g-1\) of the hyperelliptic Torelli group is infintely generated. As a consequence, the hyperelliptic Torelli group of genus \(g=3\) is not finitely presentable (in genus \(g=2\) it is a free group of infinite rank but for genus \(g \geq 3\) it is not known if it is finitely generated or presented, in general).