On the Teichmüller tower of mapping class groups (Q4953847)

The authors exhibit a large subgroup of the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group which has the following property: it acts on the profinite mapping class groups \(\Gamma^m_{g,n}\) for all \(g,n,m\geq 0\) (recall that these groups, also called Teichmüller modular groups in an algebraic context, are isomorphic to fundamental groups of moduli spaces of curves with a given finite number of marked points and boundary components). It is emphasized the fact that this action, which extends the known action in the genus 0 case, respects certain fundamental homomorphisms between the mapping class groups, namely those naturally induced by inclusions of the associated subsurfaces. A Teichmüller tower consists of a collection of mapping class groups linked by certain natural homomorphisms coming from corresponding homomorphisms between the associated moduli spaces. The geometric (outer) automorphism group of such a Teichmüller tower is the collection of tuples of automorphisms of each of the mapping class groups which commute, up to inner automorphism, with the homomorphisms of the tower. Until now, only Teichmüller towers consisting of mapping class groups in genus zero (or braid groups) have been studied. Let \(GT^1\) be the subgroup of the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group having \(\lambda\)-component equal to 1. Let us define a subgroup \(\Lambda\) of \(GT^1\) by adding one additional defining relation to the definition of \(GT^1\), and show that \(\Lambda\) acts on the tower of profinite mapping class groups \(\Gamma^m_{g,n}\) for all \(g,n,m\geq 0\), respecting all the natural arrows \(\Gamma^{\prime m}_{\prime g,\prime n}\to\Gamma^m_{g,n}\) coming from cutting out a topological surface of genus \(\prime g\) with \(\prime n\) punctures and \(\prime m\) boundary components inside one of genus \(g\) with \(n\) punctures and \(m\) boundary components. The proof that these homomorphisms are respected is an easy consequence of a certain local inertia conjugation property of the action of \(\Lambda\).