Cohomology of mapping class groups and the abelian moduli space (Q436026)

The authors study some cohomology groups of the mapping class group \(\Gamma\) of a surface \(S\) of genus \(\geq 3\) which is either closed or has one boundary component. Let \(M\) be the \(U(1)\)-representation variety of \(\pi_1(S)\). The vanishing of the group \(H^0(\Gamma,L^2_0(M))\) can be interpreted as the ergodicity of the action of the mapping class group on the representation variety, as was established in the work of Goldman, Gelander, Pickrell and Xia. In the present article, the authors use some elementary facts about mapping class groups and homological algebra to show that the groups \(H^1(\Gamma,L^2(M))\) and \(H^1(\Gamma,C^{\infty}(M))\) vanish.