Order-preserving outer automorphisms of free and surface groups

The paper studies outer automorphisms of free groups and surface groups which preserve bi-orders. Recall that a group is \textit{bi-orderable} if it admits a total order invariant under both left and right multiplication. If \(G\) is bi-orderable, a subgroup of \(\operatorname{Out}(G)\) is called \textit{order-preserving} if it fixes a bi-order on \(G\).\N\NThe first main result deals with order-preserving finite subgroups of \(\operatorname{Out}(G)\). Let \(G\) be either a finitely generated non-abelian free group or a bi-orderable surface group and let \(\pi\colon \operatorname{Aut}(G)\to \operatorname{Out}(G)\) be the natural quotient map. Theorem~1.3 states that a finite subgroup \(H\leq \operatorname{Out}(G)\) is order-preserving if and only if its full preimage \(\pi^{-1}(H)\) is torsion-free. In the free group case it also gives an algorithm deciding whether a finite subgroup of \(\operatorname{Out}(G)\) is order-preserving (see~Co\-rol\-la\-ry~1.4). The same argument yields further consequences, such as the Euler characteristic divisibility criterion of Corollary~2.1 and the construction of infinite-order order-preserving outer automorphisms in Corollary~2.2.\N\NThe second part of the paper is motivated by a criterion of Perron and Rolfsen. If \(F_n\) is the free group of rank \(n\) and \(\phi\in \operatorname{Aut}(F_n)\), then \(\phi\) induces a linear map \(\phi_{\mathrm{ab}}\) on the abelianization \(F_n/[F_n,F_n]\simeq \mathbb Z^n\). This criterion says that, if all eigenvalues of this induced linear map are real and positive, then \(\phi\) is order-preserving. The authors prove an analogue of this criterion for automorphisms of \(F_n\) coming from braids, using the Artin action of the braid group on the free group (see Theorem~1.6). The remaining braid results apply this criterion to obtain new order-preserving braids: in particular, Theorem~1.8 gives an explicit family of order-preserving \(3\)-braids and Corollary~1.9 shows that the square of every non-periodic \(3\)-braid is order-preserving.

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