Homomorphisms between pure mapping class groups (Q6899283)

This article studies homomorphisms between pure mapping class groups\N\[\N\mathrm{PMcg}(S) \to \mathrm{PMcg}(S')\N\]\Nof orientable finite-type surfaces.\N\NThe main results constrain such homomorphisms if the genus of \(S'\) is bounded by an exponential function of the genus of \(S\): they are induced by maps between the diffeomorphism groups (Theorem 1.1), and are given by concrete topological constructions (Theorem 1.2) called multi-embeddings. In fact, for closed surfaces any such homomorphism is trivial (Corollary 1.3). These results extend previous results [\textit{N. V. Ivanov}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 1997, No. 14, 651--666 (1997; Zbl 0890.57018); \textit{N. V. Ivanov}, Lect. Notes Math. 1346, 199--270 (1988; Zbl 0657.57004); \textit{L. Chen} and \textit{J. Lanier}, Geom. Dedicata 218, No. 5, Paper No. 100, 17 p. (2024; Zbl 07926260); \textit{J. Aramayona} and \textit{J. Souto}, Geom. Topol. 16, No. 4, 2285--2341 (2012; Zbl 1262.57003)] with better genus bounds.\N\NThe strategy of the proofs is to first prove that Dehn twists map to multitwists (under the genus bound). Once this is known, a careful study of braid relations between multitwists is used to show that multitwist-preserving homomorphisms are induced by multi-embeddings.