Crosscap slides and the level 2 mapping class group of a nonorientable surface (Q715192)

Let \({\mathcal {M}}(S)\) be the mapping class group of a compact orientable surface \(S\). It is known that \({\mathcal {M}}(S)\) is generated by Dehn twists. On a compact nonorientable surface \(N\), however, there are elements of the mapping class group \({\mathcal {M}}(N)\) which cannot be expressed as a product of Dehn twists. An example of such an element is a crosscap slide, a homeomorphism of the nonorientable surface of genus at least 2. The author considers the subgroup \({\mathcal Y}(N)\) of \({\mathcal {M}}(N)\) generated by all crosscap slides. The main result is Theorem 5.5 which asserts that for a closed nonorientable surface \(N\) of genus \(g\geq 2\), \({\mathcal Y}(N)\) is equal to the level 2 subgroup \(\Gamma _2 (N)\) of \({\mathcal {M}}(N)\) consisting of those mapping classes which act trivially on \(H_1 (N; \mathbb Z_2)\). In particular \({\mathcal Y}(N)\) is of finite index. Also \({\mathcal Y}(N)\) is generated by involutions (Theorem 3.7).