In this paper we define a quantity called the rank of an outer automorphism of a free group which is the same as the index introduced in [D. Gaboriau, A. Jaeger, G. Levitt and M. Lustig, `An index for counting fixed points for automorphisms of free groups', Duke Math. J. 93 (1998) 425-452] without the count of fixed points on the boundary. We proceed to analyze outer automorphisms of maximal rank and obtain results analogous to those in [D.J. Collins and E. Turner, `An automorphism of a free group of finite rank with maximal rank fixed point subgroup fixes a primitive element', J. Pure and Applied Algebra 88 (1993) 43-49]. We also deduce that all such outer automorphisms can be represented by Dehn twists, thus proving the converse to a result in [M.M. Cohen and M. Lustig, `The conjugacy problem for Dehn twist automorphisms of free groups', Comment Math. Helv. 74 (1999) 179-200], and indicate a solution to the conjugacy problem when such automorphisms are given in terms of images of a basis, thus providing a moderate extension to the main theorem of Cohen and Lustig by somewhat different methods.
We study the normal closure of a big power of one or several Dehn twists in a Mapping Class Group. We prove that it has a presentation whose relators consists only of commutators between twists of disjoint support, thus answering a question of Ivanov. Our method is to use the theory of projection complexes of Bestvina Bromberg and Fujiwara, together with the theory of rotating families, simultaneously on several spaces.
A criterion for quadratic or higher growth of group automorphisms is established which are represented by graph-of-groups automorphisms with certain well specified properties. As a consequence, it is derived (using results of a previous paper of the author) that every partial Dehn twist automorphism of $\FN$ relative to local Dehn twist automorphisms is either an honest Dehn twist automorphism, or else has quadratic growth.
We give a small generating set for the twist subgroup of the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface by Dehn twists. The difference between the number of the generators and a lower bound of numbers of generators for the twist subgroup by Dehn twists is one. The lower bounds is obtained from an argument of Hirose [5].
The level $2$ mapping class group of an orientable closed surface can be generated by squares of Dehn twists about non-separating curves. On the other hand, the level $2$ mapping class group $\mathcal{M}_2(N_g)$ of a non-orientable closed surface $N_g$ can not be generated by only Dehn twists, and so it can not be generated by squares of Dehn twists about non-separating curves. In this paper, we prove that the Dehn twist subgroup of $\mathcal{M}_2(N_g)$ can not be generated by squares of Dehn twists about non-separating curves either. As an application, we give a finite generating set for the …
Margalit and Schleimer constructed nontrivial roots of the Dehn twist about a nonseparating curve. We prove that the conjugacy classes of roots of the Dehn twist about a nonseparating curve correspond to the conjugacy classes of periodic maps with certain conditions. Futhermore, we give data set which determine the conjugacy class of a root. As a consequence, we can find the minimum degree and the maximum degree, and show that the degree must be odd. Also, we give Dehn twist expression of the root of degree 3.
It is proved that the stable commutator length of a Dehn twist in the mapping class group is positive and the tenth power of a Dehn twist about a nonseparating simple closed curve is a product of two commutators. As an application a new proof of the fact that the growth rate of a Dehn twist is linear is given.
We study subgroups of the mapping class group of the torus generated by powers generated by powers of Dehn twists. We give a criterion to show when a collection of powers Dehn twists generates a free group using the ping pong lemma. We show that the subgroup generated by three uniform powers of Dehn twists can be either the whole mapping class group, a direct product of a free group of rank two with the cyclic group of order two, or a free group of rank at most three. We characterize subgroups generated by a collection of (respectively squares of) Dehn twists, if there is a pair among so that …
We give a bound for the exponents of powers of Dehn twists to generate a right-angled Artin group. Precisely, if $\mathcal{F}$ is a finite collection of pairwise distinct simple closed curves on a finite type surface and if $N$ denotes the maximum of the intersection numbers of all pairs of curves in $\mathcal{F}$, then we prove that $\{T_γ^n \,\vert\, γ\in \mathcal{F} \}$ generates a right-angled Artin group for all $n \geq N^2 + N + 3$. This extends a previous result of Koberda, who proved the existence of a bound possibly depending on the underlying hyperbolic structure of the surface. In t…
We give new upper bounds on the stable commutator lengths of Dehn twists along separating curves in the mapping class group of a closed oriented surface. The estimates of these upper bounds are $O(1/g)$, where $g$ is the genus of the surface.
By using a notion of a geometric Dehn twist in $\sharp_k(S^2 \times S^1)$, we prove that when projections of two $\mathbb{Z}$-splittings to the free factor complex are far enough from each other in the free factor complex, Dehn twist automorphisms corresponding to the $\mathbb{Z}$-splittings generate a free group of rank $2$. Moreover, every element from this free group is either conjugate to a power of one of the Dehn twists or it is a fully irreducible outer automorphism of the free group. We also prove that, when projected to the intersection graph, the same group of Dehn twists produce ato…
We show that any exceptional non-trivial Dehn surgery on a twist knot, except the trefoil, yields a 3-manifold whose fundamental group is left-orderable. This is a generalization of a result of Clay, Lidman and Watson, and also gives a new supporting evidence for a conjecture of Boyer, Gordon and Watson.
For any hyperbolic twist knot in the 3-sphere, we show that the resulting manifold by $r$-surgery on the knot has left-orderable fundamental group if the slope $r$ satisfies the inequality $0\le r \le 4$.
We refine Cohen and Lustig's description of centralisers of Dehn twists of free groups. We show that the centraliser of a Dehn twist of a free group has a subgroup of finite index that has a finite classifying space. We describe an algorithm to find a presentation of the centraliser. We use this algorithm to give an explicit presentation for the centraliser of a Nielsen automorphism in Aut(F_n). This gives restrictions to actions of Aut(F_n) on CAT(0) spaces.
McCarthy's Theorem for the mapping class group of a closed hyperbolic surface states that for any two mapping classes $σ,τ\in \mathrm{Mod}(S)$ there is some power $N$ such that the group $\langle σ^N,τ^N\rangle$ is either free of rank two or abelian, and gives a geometric criterion for the dichotomy. The analogous statement is false in linear groups, and unresolved for outer automorphisms of a free group. Several analogs are known for exponentially growing outer automorphisms satisfying various technical hypothesis. In this article we prove an analogous statement when $σ$ and $τ$ are linearly …
For any unoriented loop on a compact connected oriented surface with one boundary component, the generalized Dehn twist along the loop is defined as an automorphism of the completed group ring of the fundamental group of the surface. If the loop is simple, this is the usual right handed Dehn twist, in particular realized as a mapping class of the surface. We investigate the case when the loop has a single transverse double point, and show that in this case the generalized Dehn twist is not realized as a mapping class.
Margalit and Schleimer observed that Dehn twists on orientable surfaces have nontrivial roots. We investigate the problem of roots of a Dehn twist t_c about a nonseparating circle c in the mapping class group M(N_g) of a nonorientable surface N_g of genus g. We explore the existence of roots and, following the work of McCullough, Rajeevsarathy and Monden, give a simple arithmetic description of their conjugacy classes. We also study roots of maximal degree and prove that if we fix an odd integer n>1, then for each sufficiently large g, t_c has a root of degree n in M(N_g). Moreover, for any po…
The aim of this paper is to survey some known results about mapping class group quotients by powers of Dehn twists, related to their finite dimensional representations and to state some open questions. One can construct finite quotients of them, out of representations with Zariski dense images into semisimple Lie groups. We show that, in genus 2, the Fibonacci TQFT representation is actually a specialization of the Jones representation. Eventually, we explain a method of Long and Moody which provides large families of mapping class group representations.
Let $Σ_{g,p}$ be the genus--$g$ oriented surface with $p$ punctures, with either $g>0$ or $p>3$. We show that $MCG(Σ_{g,p})/DT$ is acylindrically hyperbolic where $DT$ is the normal subgroup of the mapping class group $MCG(Σ_{g,p})$ generated by $K^{th}$ powers of Dehn twists about curves in $Σ_{g,p}$ for suitable $K$. Moreover, we show that in low complexity $MCG(Σ_{g,p})/DT$ is in fact hyperbolic. In particular, for $3g-3+p\leq 2$, we show that the mapping class group $MCG(Σ_{g,p})$ is fully residually non-elementary hyperbolic and admits an affine isometric action with unbounded orbits on s…
The first aim of this paper is to give four types of examples of surface bundles over surfaces with non-zero signature. The first example is with base genus 2, a prescribed signature, a 0-section and the fiber genus greater than a certain number which depends on the signature. This provides a new upper bound on the minimal base genus for fixed signature and fiber genus. The second one gives a new asymptotic upper bound for this number in the case that fiber genus is odd. The third one has a small Euler characteristic. The last is a non-holomorphic example. The second aim is to improve upper bo…
In this paper we study the quotient and "blow-up" of graph-of-groups $\cal{G}$ and of their automorphisms $H: \cal{G} \rightarrow \cal{G}$. We show that the existence of such a "blow-up" of $\bar{H}: \bar{\cal{G}} \rightarrow \bar{\cal{G}}$ relative to a given family of "local" graph-of-groups isomorphisms $H_{i}: \cal{G}_{i} \rightarrow \cal{G}_{i}$ depends crucially on the $H_{i}$-conjugacy class of the correction term $δ(\bar{E}_{i})$ for any edge $\bar{E}_{i}$ of $\bar{\cal{G}}$, where $H$-congjugacy is a new but natural concept introduced here. As an application we obtain a criterion as t…
This paper contains two topics, the index of a power subgroup in the mapping class group $\mathcal{M}(0,2n)$ of a $2n$-punctured sphere and in the hyperelliptic mapping class group $Δ(g,0)$ of an oriented closed surface of genus $g$. The main tool is a projective representation of $\mathcal{M}(0,2n)$ obtained through the Kauffman bracket skein module. For $\mathcal{M}(0,2n)$, we prove that the normal closure of the fifth power of a half-twist has infinite index. This is the remaining case of a Masbaum's work. For $Δ(g,0)$, we consider the normal closure of $m$-th powers of Dehn twists along al…
Following the philosophy of arithmetic topology, we describe a point of view which helps look at surfaces and $p$-adic fields in a "uniform way", and show that results on mapping class groups can be extended to this point of view, and thus be applied to $G_{K}$, the absolute Galois groups of the $p$-adic field $K$. By moving both groups to the world of pro-$p$ groups (for $G_{K}$ we take its maximal pro-$p$ quotient, and for $π_{1}(S)$ we take its pro-$p$ completion), we see they both are pro-$p$ Poincare duality groups of dimension $2$, also known as Demuskin groups. Such groups have a very n…
We give new upper bounds on the stable commutator lengths of Dehn twists in mapping class groups and new lower bounds on the stable commutator lengths of Dehn twists in hyperelliptic mapping class groups. In particular, we show that the stable commutator lengths of Dehn twists about a nonseparating and a separating curve on an oriented closed surface of genus 2 are not equal to each other.
By a theorem of Thurston, in the subgroup of the mapping class group generated by Dehn twists around two curves that fill, every element not conjugate to a power of one of the twist is pseudo-Anosov. We prove an analogue of this theorem for the outer automorphism group of a free group.
Let Gamma be a group generated by two positive multi-twists. We give some sufficient conditions for Gamma to be free or have no `unexpectedly reducible' elements. For a group Gamma generated by two Dehn twists, we classify the elements in Gamma which are multi-twists. As a consequence we are able to list all the lantern-like relations in the mapping class groups. We classify groups generated by powers of two Dehn twists which are free, or have no "unexpectedly reducible" elements. In the end we pose similar problems for groups generated by powers of n > 2 twists and give a partial result.
A finite presentation for the subgroup of the mapping class group of a compact non-orientable surface generated by all Dehn twists was given by Stukow. In this paper, we give an infinite presentation for this group, mainly using the presentation given by Stukow and Birman exact sequences on mapping class groups of non-orientable surfaces.
Homological mirror symmetry predicts that there is a relation between autoequivalence groups of derived categories of coherent sheaves on Calabi-Yau varieties, and the symplectic mapping class groups of symplectic manifolds. In this paper, as an analogue of Dehn twists for mapping class groups of closed oriented real surfaces, we study spherical twists for derived categories of algebraic varieties. We introduce the intersection number and relate it to group-theoretic properties of spherical twists. As an application, we compute the center of autoequivalence groups of derived categories of K3 s…
