Infinite topology of curve complexes and non-Poincaré duality of Teichmüller modular groups

MaRDI QIDQ1002487zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Lizhen Ji, Nikolai V. Ivanov

Publication date 26 February 2009

Published in L'Enseignement Mathématique. 2e Série (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0707.4322

zbMATH Keywords

curve complexmapping class groupTeichmüller modular group

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Special aspects of infinite or finite groups (20F99) Topological methods in group theory (57M07) General low-dimensional topology (57M99)

Abstract: In this note, we fill in a gap in the literature by proving that the Teichmueller modular groups (mapping class groups) are not Poincare duality groups and the complexes of curves of surfaces have infinite homotopy type (i.e. are not homotopy equivalent to a finite CW-complex).

Review text

In this paper, \(Mod_g\) denotes the mapping class group of a closed orientable surface \(S\) of genus \(g\geq 2\), and \(\mathcal{C}\) denotes the curve complex of \(S\). The following is a result by \textit{J. Harer} [Invent. Math. 84, 157--176 (1986; Zbl 0592.57009)]: Theorem: The curve complex \(\mathcal{C}(S)\) is homotopy equivalent to a bouquet of spheres \(\bigvee S^n\), where \(n=2g-2\). In the paper under review, motivated by this result, and as a complement to Harer's work, the authors give a proof of the following: Theorem: The curve complex \(\mathcal{C}(S)\) is not contractible, and hence the bouquet \(\bigvee S^n\) in Harer's Theorem contains at least one sphere. Theorem: The curve complex \(\mathcal{C}(S)\) is homotopy equivalent to a countably infinite bouquet of spheres \(\bigvee S^n\), where \(n=2g-2\). An algebraic counterpart of these results is also stated as follows: Theorem: For every non torsion-free subgroup \(\Gamma\) of \(Mod_g\) of finite index, \(\Gamma\) is not a Poincaré duality group. Equivalently, \(Mod_g\) is not a virtual Poincaré duality group. In particular, no subgroup \(\Gamma\) of finite index of \(Mod_g\) can be realized as the fundamental group of a closed aspherical manifold.

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Cited in

(6)

• Dynamics of Teichmüller modular groups and topology of moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces of infinite type
• Curve complexes versus Tits buildings: structures and applications
• Homology of the curve complex and the Steinberg module of the mapping class group
• On the topology of ending lamination space
• Finite rigid sets and homologically nontrivial spheres in the curve complex of a surface
• An \(\mathcal{EZ}\)-structure for the mapping class group

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