In the present paper we study the singular pure braid group $SP_{n}$ for $n=2, 3$. We find generators, defining relations and the algebraical structure of these groups. In particular, we prove that $SP_{3}$ is a semi-direct product $SP_{3} = \widetilde{V}_3 \leftthreetimes \mathbb{Z}$, where $\widetilde{V}_3$ is an HNN-extension with base group $\mathbb{Z}^2 * \mathbb{Z}^2$ and cyclic associated subgroups. We prove that the center $Z(SP_3)$ of $SP_3$ is a direct factor in $SP_3$.
We present an algorithm for solving the conjugacy search problem in the four strand braid group. The computational complexity is cubic with respect to the braid length.
Presentations are computed for a braided version BV of Thompson's group V and for V itself showing that there is an Artin group/Coxeter group relation between them. The presentation for V is obtained from that for BV by declaring all that all generators are involutions.
We give an algorithm which decides the Nielsen-Thurston type of a given four-strand braid. The complexity of our algorithm is quadratic with respect to word length. The proof of its validity is based on a result which states that for a reducible 4-braid which is as short as possible within its conjugacy class (short in the sense of Garside), reducing curves surrounding three punctures must be round or almost round.
We classify an action of the $n$-strand braid group on the free group of rank $n$ which is similar to the Artin representation in the sense that the $i$-th generator $σ_{i}$ of $B_{n}$ acts so that it fixes all free generators $x_{j}$ except $j = i,i+1$. We determine all such representations and discuss knot invariants coming from such representations.
A generalization of the topological fundamental group is developed in order to exhibit a topologically complete braid group containing Artin's braid group on infinitely many strands with respect to the following notion of convergence: A sequence of braids b(n) converges to the trivial braid iff for each M>0 eventually the first M strands of b(n) are trivial.
We study the geodesic growth series of the braid group on three strands, B_3 := <a,b|aba = bab>. We show that the set of geodesics of B_3 with respect to the generating set S := {a,b,a^-1,b^-1} is a regular language, and we provide an explicit computation of the geodesic growth series with respect to this set of generators. In the process, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for a freely reduced word w in S^* to be geodesic in B_3 with respect to S. Also, we show that the translation length with respect to S of any element in B_3 is an integer.
The group of planar (or flat) pure braids on $n$ strands, also known as the pure twin group, is the fundamental group of the configuration space $F_{n,3}(\mathbb{R})$ of $n$ labelled points in $\mathbb{R}$ no three of which coincide. The planar pure braid groups on 3, 4 and 5 strands are free. In this note we describe the planar pure braid group on 6 strands: it is a free product of the free group on 71 generators and 20 copies of the free abelian group of rank two.
This article is dedicate to cabling on virtual braids. This construction gives a new generating set for the virtual pure braid group $VP_n$. Consequently we describe $VP_4$ as HNN-extension. As an application to classical braids, we find a new presentation of the Artin pure braid group $P_4$ in terms of the cabled generators.
In this work we present a natural surjective map from rigid braids in B_3 (in Garside sense) to SL_2(N). This map provides an upper and a lower bound for the dilatation factor of a pseudo-Anosov 3-strand braid. These bounds only depend on the canonical length of the classical Garside structure of B_3.
We use a variation on the commutator collection process to characterize those pure braids which become trivial when any one strand is deleted, or, more generally, those pure braids which become trivial when all the strands in any one of a list of sets of strands is deleted.
The singularities of the representation variety of $B_3$ are studied, where $B_3$ is the knot group on 3 strands. Specifically, we determine which semisimple representations are smooth points of this variety.
Let $SB_n$ be the singular braid group generated by braid generators $σ_i$ and singular braid generators $τ_i$, $1 \leq i \leq n-1$. Let $ST_n$ denote the group that is the kernel of the homomorphism that maps, for each $i$, $σ_i$ to the cyclic permutation $(i, i+1)$ and $τ_i$ to $1$. In this paper we investigate the group $ST_3$. We obtain a presentation for $ST_3$. We prove that $ST_3$ is isomorphic to the singular pure braid group $SP_3$ on $3$ strands. We also prove that the group $ST_3$ is semi-direct product of a subgroup $H$ and an infinite cyclic group, where the subgroup $H$ is an HNN…
We give a complete classification of homomorphisms from the commutator subgroup of the braid group on $n$ strands to the braid group on $n$ strands when $n$ is at least 7. In particular, we show that each nontrivial homomorphism extends to an automorphism of the braid group on $n$ strands. This answers four questions of Vladimir Lin. Our main new tool is the theory of totally symmetric sets.
We show that braid groups with at most 6 strands are CAT(0) using the close connection between these groups, the associated non-crossing partition complexes and the embeddability of their diagonal links into spherical buildings of type A. Furthermore, we prove that the orthoscheme complex of any bounded graded modular complemented lattice is CAT(0), giving a partial answer to a conjecture of Brady and McCammond.
We show that the Artin pure braid group on at least four strands is not residually free. Our results also show that the pure braid group on at least three strands has corank two.
We investigate a group $B\_\bullet$ that includes Artin's braid group $B\_\infty$ and Thompson's group $F$. The elements of $B\_\bullet$ are represented by braids diagrams in which the distances between the strands are not uniform and, besides the usual crossing generators, new rescaling operators shrink or strech the distances between the strands. We prove that $B\_\bullet$ is a group of fractions, that it is orderable, admits a non-trivial self-distributive structure, i.e., one involving the law $x(yz)=(xy)(xz)$, embeds in the mapping class group of a sphere with a Cantor set of punctures, a…
An embedding of the m-times punctured disc into the n-times punctured disc, for n>m, yields an embedding of the braid group on m strands B_m into the braid group on n strands B_n, called a geometric embedding. The main example consists of adding n-m trivial strands to the right of each braid on m strands. We show that geometric embeddings do not merge conjugacy classes, meaning that if the images of two elements in B_m by a geometric embedding are conjugate in B_n, the original elements are conjugate in B_m. We also show that the result does not hold, in general, for geometric embeddings of ma…
We show that the morphisms from the braid group with n strands in the mapping class group of a surface with a possible non empty boundary, assuming that its genus is smaller or equal to n/2 are either cyclic morphisms (their images are cyclic groups), or transvections of monodromy morphisms (up to multiplication by an element in the centralizer of the image, the image of a standard generator of the braid group is a Dehn twist, and the images of two consecutive standard generators are two Dehn twists along two curves intersecting in one point). As a corollary, we determine the endomorphisms, th…
We prove that pure braid groups of closed surface are almost-direct products of residually torsion free nilpotent groups and hence residually torsion free nilpotent. As a Corollary, we prove also that braid groups on 2 strands of closed surfaces are residually nilpotent.
If G is a finite graph and n is a natural number, then the n-strand braid group of G is the fundamental group of the configuration space of n points on G. This article gives a complete computation of the integral cohomology rings of the n-strand braid groups in case G is a tree. Some of the argument builds on earlier joint work with Lucas Sabalka.
In this paper we give a description of the generators of the prime level congruence subgroups of braid groups. Also, we give a new presentation of the symplectic group over a finite field, and we calculate symmetric quotients of the prime level congruence subgroups of braid groups. Finally, we find a finite generating set for the level-3 congruence subgroup of the braid group on 3 strands.
We present a generalization of the Dehornoy-Brin braided Thompson group $BV_2$ that uses recursive braids. Our new groups are denoted by $BV_{n,r}(H)$, for all $n\geq 2,r\geq 1$ and $H \leq \mathcal{B}_n$, where $\mathcal{B}_n$ is the braid group on $n$ strands. We give a new approach to deal with braided Thompson groups by using strand diagrams. We show that $BV_{n,r}(H)$ is finitely generated if $H$ is finitely generated.
For $n$ at least 7 and $n$ equal to 5, we give generating sets of size 2 for the commutator subgroup of the braid group on $n$ strands. These generating sets are of the smallest possible cardinality. For $n$ equal to 4 or 6, we give generating sets of size three. We also prove that the commutator subgroup of the braid group on 4 strands cannot be generated by fewer than three elements.
We construct an embedding of any right-angled Artin group $G(Δ)$ defined by a graph $Δ$ into a graph braid group. The number of strands required for the braid group is equal to the chromatic number of $Δ$. This construction yields an example of a hyperbolic surface subgroup embedded in a two strand planar graph braid group.
Braided Thompson's groups are finitely presented groups introduced by Brin and Dehornoy which contain the ordinary braid groups $B_n$, the finitary braid group $B_{\infty}$ and Thompson's group $F$ as subgroups. We describe some of the metric properties of braided Thompson's groups and give upper and lower bounds for word length in terms of the number of strands and the number of crossings in the diagrams used to represent elements.
We prove that, in the $l$-ball of the Cayley graph of the braid group with $n \geqslant 3$ strands, the proportion of rigid pseudo-Anosov braids is bounded below independently of $l$ by a positive value.
For a general surface $M$ and an arbitrary braid $α$ from the surface braid group $B_{n-1}(M)$ we study the system of equations $d_1β=\cdots=d_{n}β=α, $ where operation $d_i$ is deleting of $i$-th strand. We obtain that if $M\not=S^2$ or $\mathbb RP^2$ this system of equations has a solution $β\in B_{n}(M)$ if and only if $d_1α=\ldots=d_nα. $ The set of braids satisfying the last system of equations we call Cohen braids. We also construct a set of generators for the groups of Cohen braids. In the cases of the sphere and the projective plane we give some examples for the small number of strands…
We establish relations between both the classical and the dual Garside structures of the braid group and the Burau representation. Using the classical structure, we formulate a non-vanishing criterion for the Burau representation of the 4-strand braid group. In the dual context, it is shown that the Burau representation for arbitrary braid index is injective when restricted to the set of \emph{simply-nested braids}.
Birman, Ko and Lee have introduced a new monoid ${\cal B}^{*}_{n}$--with an explicit presentation--whose group of fractions is the $n$-strand braid group ${\cal B}_{n}$. Building on a new approach by Digne, Michel and himself, Bessis has defined a {\it dual} braid monoid for every finite Coxeter type Artin-Tits group extending the type A case. Here, we give an explicit presentation for this dual braid monoid in the case of types B and D, and we study the combinatorics of the underlying Garside structures.
Homotopy braid group is the subject of the paper. First, linearity of homotopy braid group over the integers is proved. Then we prove that the group homotopy braid group on three strands is torsion free.
We present an algorithm to generate positive braids of a given length as words in Artin generators with a uniform probability. The complexity of this algorithm is polynomial in the number of strands and in the length of the generated braids. As a byproduct, we describe a finite state automaton accepting the language of lexicographically minimal representatives of positive braids that has the minimal possible number of states, and we prove that its number of states is exponential in the number of strands.
Garside-theoretical solutions to the conjugacy problem in braid groups depend on the determination of a characteristic subset of the conjugacy class of any given braid, e.g. the sliding circuit set. It is conjectured that, among rigid braids with a fixed number of strands, the size of this set is bounded by a polynomial in the length of the braids. In this paper we suggest a more precise bound: for rigid braids with $N$ strands and of Garside length $L$, the sliding circuit set should have at most $C\cdot L^{N-2}$ elements, for some constant $C$. We construct a family of braids which realise t…
We study the representations of the commutator subgroup of the braid group with n strands in the symmetric group of degree r. Motivated by some experimental results, we conjecture that for n>r, every such representation is trivial.
Let VB$_n$ be the virtual braid group on $n$ strands and let $\mathfrak{S}_n$ be the symmetric group on $n$ letters. Let $n,m \in \mathbb{N}$ such that $n \ge 5$, $m \ge 2$ and $n \ge m$. We determine all possible homomorphisms from VB$_n$ to $\mathfrak{S}_m$, from $\mathfrak{S}_n$ to VB$_m$ and from VB$_n$ to VB$_m$. As corollaries we get that Out(VB$_n$) is isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z} \times \mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$ and that VB$_n$ is both Hopfian and co-Hofpian.
The singular braids with $n$ strands, $n \geq 3$, were introduced independently by Baez and Birman. It is known that the monoid formed by the singular braids is embedded in a group that is known as singular braid group, denoted by $SG_n$. There has been another generalization of braid groups, denoted by $GVB_n$, $n \geq 3$, which was introduced by Fang as a group of symmetries behind quantum quasi-shuffle structures. The group $GVB_n$ simultaneously generalizes the classical braid group, as well as the virtual braid group on $n$ strands. We investigate the commutator subgroups $SG_n'$ and $GVB…
We describe pure braided versions of Thompson's group F. These groups, $BF$ and $\hat{BF}$, are subgroups of the braided versions of Thompson's group V, introduced by Brin and Dehornoy. Unlike V, elements of F are order-preserving self-maps of the interval and we use pure braids together with elements of F thus preserving order. We define these groups and give normal forms for elements and describe infinite and finite presentations of these groups.
We derive a lower bound on the size of finite non-cyclic quotients of the braid group that is superexponential in the number of strands. We also derive a similar lower bound for nontrivial finite quotients of the commutator subgroup of the braid group.
Artin's representation is an injective homomorphism from the braid group $B_n$ on $n$ strands into $\operatorname{Aut}\mathbb{F}_n$, the automorphism group of the free group $\mathbb{F}_n$ on $n$ generators. The representation induces maps $B_n\to\operatorname{Aut}C^*_r(\mathbb{F}_n)$ and $B_n\to\operatorname{Aut}C^*(\mathbb{F}_n)$ into the automorphism groups of the corresponding group $C^*$-algebras of $\mathbb{F}_n$. These maps also have natural restrictions to the pure braid group $P_n$. In this paper, we consider twisted versions of the actions by cocycles with values in the circle, and d…
We introduce an algorithmic framework to investigate spherical and geodesic growth series of braid groups relatively to the Artin's or Birman-Ko-Lee's generators. We present our experimentations in the case of three and four strands and conjecture rational expressions for the spherical growth series with respect to the Birman-Ko-Lee's generators.
Let $G$ be one of the Artin groups of finite type ${\mathbf B}_n={\mathbf C}_n$, and affine type $\tilde{\mathbf A}_{n-1}$ and $\tilde{\mathbf C}_{n-1}$. In this paper, we show that if $α$ and $β$ are elements of $G$ such that $α^k=β^k$ for some nonzero integer $k$, then $α$ and $β$ are conjugate in $G$. For the Artin group of type $\mathbf A_n$, this was recently proved by J. González-Meneses. In fact, we prove a stronger theorem, from which the above result follows easily by using descriptions of those Artin groups as subgroups of the braid group on $n+1$ strands. Let $P$ be a subset of $\{1…
We prove that if g and n are integers at least two, then the abstract commensurator of the braid group with n strands on a closed orientable surface of genus g is naturally isomorphic to the extended mapping class group of a compact orientable surface of genus g with n boundary components.
We solve the isomorphism problem for braid groups on trees with $n = 4$ or 5 strands. We do so in three main steps, each of which is interesting in its own right. First, we establish some tools and terminology for dealing with computations using the cohomology of tree braid groups, couching our discussion in the language of differential forms. Second, we show that, given a tree braid group $B_nT$ on $n = 4$ or 5 strands, $H^*(B_nT)$ is an exterior face algebra. Finally, we prove that one may reconstruct the tree $T$ from a tree braid group $B_nT$ for $n = 4$ or 5. Among other corollaries, this…
The n-strand braid group can be defined as the fundamental group of the configuration space of n unlabeled points in a closed disk based at a configuration where all n points lie in the boundary of the disk. Using this definition, the subset of braids that have a representative where a specified subset of these points remain pointwise fixed forms a subgroup isomorphic to a braid group with fewer strands. In this article, we generalize this phenomenon by introducing the notion of boundary braids. A boundary braid is a braid that has a representative where some specified subset of the points rem…
