The Magnus representation and higher-order Alexander invariants for homology cobordisms of surfaces (Q929202)

The author studies the monoid of all homology cobordisms from a surface to itself. He defines an analogue of the Magnus representation for this monoid and uses the Reidemeister torsion type invariants which generalize the techniques used previously by Kirk, Levingston and Wang. In the second part of the paper the author applies a modification of the theory of higher order noncommutative Alexander invariants (as developed by Cochran, Harvey and others) to unveil the structure of the monoid of homology cobordisms.