Cup products, the Johnson homomorphism and surface bundles over surfaces with multiple fiberings (Q907782)

Let \(\text{Mod}(F)\) denote the mapping class group of a closed surface \(F\) with genus \(g \geq 2\). This group has an action on \(H_1(F; \mathbb{Z})\) whose kernel is called the Torelli group and is denoted by \(\mathcal{I}_g\). Let \(\mathcal{K}_g\) be the subgroup of \(\mathcal{I}_g\) generated by Dehn twists along separating curves in \(F\) which is called the Johnson kernel. In this paper the author considers a surface bundle \(F\to E\rightarrow{p} B\) over a surface with monodromy representation \(\rho : \pi_1B \to \text{Mod}(F)\) lying in \(\mathcal{K}_g\). The main theorem (Theorem 1.1) states that any such nontrivial bundle admits a unique fibering. This is equivalent to saying that if there is a second surface bundle \(F' \to E\rightarrow{p'} B'\) then \(E\) is diffeomorphic to \(B\times B'\). To prove this it suffices to show that the monodromy of \(E\) is trivial. Let us put \([F']=(p')^!(\ast) \in H_2(E)\) if \(\ast\) generates \(H_0(B)\). Then the proof is accomplished by analyzing this homology class based on analysis of \(\rho\). It can be roughly outlined as follows. The first fundamental result thus obtained is that \(g=h\) where \(h\) denotes the genus of \(B'\). This shows that \(p'|_F\) is a map of degree one between surfaces of the same genus, so \((p')_* :\pi_1F \to \pi_1B'\) becomes an isomorphism. We also see that each of the projections \(p\) and \(p'\) induces a short exact sequence between fundamental groups and so the kernel of \((p\times p')_*\) is given by \(\pi_1F\cap \pi_1F'\). Combining these two facts yields that the bi-projection \(p\times p'\) induces an isomorphism \((p\times p')_* : \pi_1E \to \pi_1B\times \pi_1B'\). Therefore we can conclude that \(\rho : \pi_1B \to \text{Mod}(F)\) becomes trivial via a homeomorphism \(\text{Out}(\pi_1F)\approx \text{Mod}(F)\). In addition to the above, the author refers to the criterion in the case where the monodromy \(\rho\) is contained in \(\mathcal{I}_g\), but not always in \(\mathcal{K}_g\), and proves that, supposing that the invariant cohomology \((H^1(F, \mathbb{Q}))^\rho\) vanishes, \(E\) admits a unique fibering (Theorem 3.5).