Section 5.3 is rewritten. The proposed generating set is shown not to be minimal, even though it is the smallest one reflecting the geometric approach. Proper credit is given to the work of other researchers, notably to N.V.Ivanov
The mixed braid groups are the subgroups of Artin braid groups whose elements preserve a given partition of the base points. We prove that the centralizer of any braid can be expressed in terms of semidirect and direct products of mixed braid groups. Then we construct a generating set of the centralizer of any braid on n strands, which has at most k(k+1)/2 elements if n=2k, and at most $k(k+3)/2 elements if n=2k+1. These bounds are shown to be sharp, due to work of N.V.Ivanov and of S.J.Lee. Finally, we describe how one can explicitly compute this generating set.
The paper encloses computation of simple centralizer of simple braids and their connection with Fibonacci numbers. Planarity of some commuting graphs is also discussed in the last section.
The goal of this paper is to construct examples of centralizers in the Artin braid groups requiring the number of generators quadratic in the number of strings. These examples disprove a recent conjecture of N. Franco and J. Gonzalez-Meneses.
We study the centralizer of a braid from the point of view of Garside theory, showing that generically a minimal set of generators can be computed very efficiently, as the ultra summit set of a generic braid has a very particular structure. We present an algorithm to compute the centralizer of a braid whose generic-case complexity is quadratic on the length of the input, and which outputs a minimal set of generators in the generic case.
We give a new method to compute the centralizer of an element in Artin braid groups and, more generally, in Garside groups. This method, together with the solution of the conugacy problem given by the authors in a previous paper, are two main steps for solving conjugacy systems, thus breaking recently discovered cryptosystems based in braid groups. We also present the result of our computations, where we notice that our algorithm yields surprisingly small generating sets for the centralizers.
These are Lecture Notes of a course given by the author at the French-Spanish School "Tresses in Pau", held in Pau (France) in October 2009. It is basically an introduction to distinct approaches and techniques that can be used to show results in braid groups. Using these techniques we provide several proofs of well known results in braid groups, namely the correctness of Artin's presentation, that the braid group is torsion free, or that its center is generated by the full twist. We also recall some solutions of the word and conjugacy problems, and that roots of a braid are always conjugate. …
Poly-free groups are constructed as iterated semidirect products of free groups. The class of poly-free groups includes the classical pure braid groups, fundamental groups of fiber-type hyperplane arrangements, and certain subgroups of the automorphism groups of free groups. The purpose of this article is to compute centralizers of certain natural Lie subalgebras of the Lie algebra obtained from the descending central series of poly-free groups G including some of the geometrically interesting classes of groups mentioned above. The main results here extend results of Cohen and Prassidis for su…
The final result of this article gives the order of the extension $$\xymatrix{1\ar[r] & P/[P,P] \ar^{j}[r] & B/[P,P] \ar^-{p}[r] & W \ar[r] & 1}$$ as an element of the cohomology group $H^2(W,P/[P,P])$ (where $B$ and $P$ stands for the braid group and the pure braid group associated to the complex reflection group $W$). To obtain this result, we describe the abelianization of the stabilizer $N_H$ of a hyperplane $H$. Contrary to the case of Coxeter groups, $N_H$ is not in general a reflection subgroup of the complex reflection group $W$. So the first step is to refine Stanley-Springer's theore…
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.
Benardete, Gutierrez and Nitecki showed an important result which relates the geometrical properties of a braid, as a homeomorphism of the punctured disk, to its algebraic Garside-theoretical properties. Namely, they showed that if a braid sends a curve to another curve, then the image of this curve after each factor of the left normal form of the braid (with the classical Garside structure) is also standard. We provide a new simple, geometric proof of the result by Benardete-Gutierrez-Nitecki, which can be easily adapted to the case of the dual Garside structure of braid groups, with the appr…
When Daan Krammer and Stephen Bigelow independently proved that braid groups are linear, they used the Lawrence-Krammer-Bigelow representation for generic values of its variables q and t. The t variable is closely connected to the traditional Garside structure of the braid group and plays a major role in Krammer's algebraic proof. The q variable, associated with the dual Garside structure of the braid group, has received less attention. In this article we give a geometric interpretation of the q portion of the LKB representation in terms of an action of the braid group on the space of non-dege…
There are well-known monomorphisms between the Artin groups of finite type $\arA_n$, $\arB_n=\arC_n$ and affine type $\tilde \arA_{n-1}$, $\tilde\arC_{n-1}$. The Artin group $A(\arA_n)$ is isomorphic to the $(n+1)$-strand braid group $B_{n+1}$, and the other three Artin groups are isomorphic to some subgroups of $B_{n+1}$. The inclusions between these subgroups yield monomorphisms $A(\arB_n)\to A(\arA_n)$, $A(\tilde \arA_{n-1})\to A(\arB_n)$ and $A(\tilde \arC_{n-1})\to A(\arB_n)$. There are another type of monomorphisms $A(\arB_d)\to A(\arA_{md-1})$, $A(\arB_d)\to A(\arB_{md})$ and $A(\arB_d)…
Several distinct Garside monoids having torus knot groups as groups of fractions are known. For $n,m\geq 2$ two coprime integers, we introduce a new Garside monoid $\mathcal{M}(n,m)$ having as Garside group the $(n,m)$-torus knot group, thereby generalizing to all torus knot groups a construction that we previously gave for the $(n,n+1)$-torus knot group. As a byproduct, we obtain new Garside structures for the braid groups of a few exceptional complex reflection groups of rank two. Analogous Garside structures are also constructed for a few additional braid groups of exceptional complex refle…
We study the structure of the virtual braid group. It is shown that the virtual braid group is a semi--direct product of the virtual pure braid group and the symmetric group. Also, it is shown that the virtual pure braid group is a semi--direct product of free groups. From these results we obtain a normal form of words in the virtual braid group. We introduce the concept of a universal braid group. This group contains the classical braid group and has as its quotient groups the singular braid group, virtual braid group, welded braid group, and classical braid group.
On the Group Structure of "Magic" Leatherworking Braids
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney(悉尼大学数学与统计学院);Warwick Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick(华威大学华威数学研究所);School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology(佐治亚理工学院物理学院);School of Mathematics, Monash University(蒙纳士大学数学学院)
We study the action of the Artin braid group B_{2g+2} on the set of spin structures on a hyperelliptic curve of genus g, which reduces to that of the symmetric group. It has been already described in terms of the classical theory of Riemann surfaces. In this paper, we compute the S_{2g+2}-orbits of the spin structures of genus $g$ and the isotropy group G_i of each orbit in a purely combinatorial way.
We consider the group of unrestricted virtual braids, describe its structure and explore its relations with fused links. Also, we define the groups of flat virtual braids and virtual Gauss braids and study some of their properties, in particular their linearity.
A result of Malyutin shows that a random walk on the mapping class group gives rise to an element whose fractional Dehn twist coefficient is large or small enough. We show that this leads to several properties of random 3-manifolds and links. For example, random closed braids and open books are hyperbolic.
We consider the braid groups $\mathbf{B}_n(X)$ on finite simplicial complexes $X$, which are generalizations of those on both manifolds and graphs that have been studied already by many authors. We figure out the relationships between geometric decompositions for $X$ and their effects on braid groups, and provide an algorithmic way to compute the group presentations for $\mathbf{B}_n(X)$ with the aid of them. As applications, we give complete criteria for both the surface embeddability and planarity for $X$, which are the torsion-freeness of the braid group $\mathbf{B}_n(X)$ and its abelianiza…
We consider braids on $m+n$ strands, such that the first $m$ strands are trivially fixed. We denote the set of all such braids by $B_{m,n}$. Via concatenation $B_{m,n}$ acquires a group structure. The objective of this paper is to find a presentation for $B_{m,n}$ using the structure of its corresponding pure braid subgroup, $P_{m,n}$, and the fact that it is a subgroup of the classical Artin group $B_{m+n}$. Then we give an irredundant presentation for $B_{m,n}$. The paper concludes by showing that these braid groups or appropriate cosets of them are related to knots in handlebodies, in knot …
These notes were prepared to supplement the talk that I gave on Feb 19, 2004, at the First East Asian School of Knots and Related Topics, Seoul, South Korea. In this article I review aspects of the interconnections between braids, knots and contact structures on Euclidean 3-space. I discuss my recent work with William Menasco (arXiv math.GT/0310279)} and (arXiv math.GT/0310280). In the latter we prove that there are distinct transversal knot types in contact 3-space having the same topological knot type and the same Bennequin invariant.
Computing Center, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences(俄罗斯科学院远东分院计算中心)
In this article, we propose the approach to structural optimization of neural networks, based on the braid theory. The paper describes the basics of braid theory as applied to the description of graph structures of neural networks. It is shown how networks of various topologies can be built using braid structures between layers of neural networks. The operation of a neural network based on the braid theory is compared with a homogeneous deep neural network and a network with random intersections between layers that do not correspond to the ordering of the braids. Results are obtained showing t…