Inclusion of configuration spaces in Cartesian products, and the virtual cohomological dimension of the braid groups of S^2 and RP^2

DOI10.2140/PJM.2017.287.71zbMATH Open1423.55027arXiv1511.02101OpenAlexW2254828820MaRDI QIDQ514623FDOQ514623

Authors: John Guaschi, Daciberg Lima Gonçalves 

Publication date: 9 March 2017

Published in: Pacific Journal of Mathematics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Let M be a surface, perhaps with boundary, and either compact, or with a finite number of points removed from the interior of the surface. We consider the inclusion i: F_n(M) -- extgreater{} M^n of the nth configuration space F_n(M) of M into the n-fold Cartesian product of M, as well as the induced homomorphism i_#: P_n(M) -- extgreater{} (pi_1(M))^n, where P_n(M) is the n-string pure braid group of M. Both i and i_# were studied initially by J.Birman who conjectured that Ker(i_#) is equal to the normal closure of the Artin pure braid group P_n in P_n(M). The conjecture was later proved by C.Goldberg for compact surfaces without boundary different from the 2-sphere S^2 and the projective plane RP^2. In this paper, we prove the conjecture for S^2 and RP^2. In the case of RP^2, we prove that Ker(i_#) is equal to the commutator subgroup of P_n(RP^2), we show that it may be decomposed in a manner similar to that of P_n(S^2) as a direct sum of a torsion-free subgroup L_n and the finite cyclic group generated by the full twist braid, and we prove that L_n may be written as an iterated semi-direct product of free groups. Finally, we show that the groups B_n(S^2) and P_n(S^2) (resp. B_n(RP^2) and P_n(RP^2)) have finite virtual cohomological dimension equal to n-3 (resp. n-2), where B_n(M) denotes the full n-string braid group of M. This allows us to determine the virtual cohomological dimension of the mapping class groups of the mapping class groups of S^2 and RP^2 with marked points, which in the case of S^2, reproves a result due to J.Harer.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.02101

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zbMATH Keywords

configuration spacessurface braid groupsgroup presentationsvirtual cohomological dimension

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Braid groups; Artin groups (20F36) Cohomology of groups (20J06) Discriminantal varieties and configuration spaces in algebraic topology (55R80)

Cited In (9)

• Embeddings and the (virtual) cohomological dimension of the braid and mapping class groups of surfaces
• Orbit configuration spaces and the homotopy groups of the pair \((\prod_1^n {M,{F_n}} (M))\) for \(M\) either \({\mathbb{S}^2}\) or \(\mathbb{R} P^2\)
• Fixed points of \(n\)-valued maps on surfaces and the Wecken property -- a configuration space approach
• The braid group \(B_{n, m}(\mathbb{R} P^2)\) and the splitting problem of the generalised Fadell-Neuwirth short exact sequence
• A survey of the homotopy properties of inclusion of certain types of configuration spaces into the Cartesian product
• Crystallographic groups and flat manifolds from surface braid groups
• On the pure braid group of a surface.
• Lower central and derived series of semi-direct products, and applications to surface braid groups
• On the homotopy fibre of the inclusion map \(F_n(X)\hookrightarrow \prod _1^nX\) for some orbit spaces \(X\)

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