Generating the liftable mapping class groups of regular cyclic covers

Abstract: Let

e x t M o d (S_{g})

be the mapping class group of the closed orientable surface of genus

g g e q 1

, and let

e x t {L M o d}_{p} (X)

be the liftable mapping class group associated with a finite-sheeted branched cover

p : S o X

, where

X

is a hyperbolic surface. For

k g e q 2

, let

p_{k} : S_{k (g - 1) + 1} o S_{g}

be the standard

k

-sheeted regular cyclic cover. In this paper, we derive an explicit finite generating sets for

e x t {L M o d}_{p_{k}} (S_{g})

for

g g e q 3

and

k g e q 2

, and

e x t {L M o d}_{p_{2}} (S_{2})

. For

g g e q 2

, as an application of our main result, we also derive a generating set for

e x t {L M o d}_{p_{2}} (S_{g}) c a p C_{e x t M o d (S_{g})} (i o t a)

, where

C_{e x t M o d (S_{g})} (i o t a)

is the centralizer of the hyperelliptic involution

i o t a i n e x t M o d (S_{g})

. Let

m a t h c a l L

be the infinite ladder surface, and let

q_{g} : m a t h c a l L o S_{g}

be the standard infinite-sheeted cover induced by

l a n g l e h^{g - 1} a n g l e

where

h

is the standard handle shift on

m a t h c a l L

. As another application, we derive a finite generating set for

e x t {L M o d}_{q_{g}} (S_{g})

. Finally, we establish that for

k g e q 2

and

g g e q 2

,

e x t {L M o d}_{p_{k}} (S_{g})

is self-normalizing in

e x t M o d (S_{g})

.

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