Let F_n be the free group on n generators. Define IA_n to be group of automorphisms of F_n that act trivially on first homology. The Johnson homomorphism in this setting is a map from IA_n to its abelianization. The first goal of this paper is to determine how much this map contributes to the second rational cohomology of IA_n.
A descending central series of IA_n is given by the subgroups K_n^(i) which act trivially on F_n/F_n^(i+1), the free rank n, degree i nilpotent group. It is a conjecture of Andreadakis that K_n^(i) is equal to the lower central series of IA_n; indeed K_n^(2) is known to be the commutator subgroup of IA_n. We prove that the quotient group K_n^(3)/IA_n^(3) is finite for all n and trivial for n=3. We also compute the rank of K_n^(2)/K_n^(3).
The Johnson filtration of the mapping class group of a compact, oriented surface is the descending series consisting of the kernels of the actions on the nilpotent quotients of the fundamental group of the surface. Each term of the Johnson filtration admits a Johnson homomorphism, whose kernel is the next term in the filtration. In this paper, we consider a general situation where a group acts on a group with a filtration called an "extended N-series". We develop a theory of Johnson homomorphisms in this general setting, including many known variants of the original Johnson homomorphisms as we…
We give a new proof of a celebrated theorem of Dennis Johnson that asserts that the kernel of the Johnson homomorphism on the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group is generated by separating twists. In fact, we prove a more general result that also applies to "subsurface Torelli groups". Using this, we extend Johnson's calculation of the rational abelianization of the Torelli group not only to the subsurface Torelli groups, but also to finite-index subgroups of the Torelli group that contain the kernel of the Johnson homomorphism.
We consider two mod-p central series of the free group given by Stallings and Zassenhaus. Applying these series to definitions of Dennis Johnson's filtration of the mapping class group we obtain two mod-p Johnson filtrations. Further, we adapt the definition of the Johnson homomorphisms to obtain mod-p Johnson homomorphisms. We calculate the image of the first of these homomorphisms. We give generators for the kernels of these homomorphisms as well. We restrict the range of our mod-p Johnson homomorphisms using work of Morita. We finally prove the announced result of Perron that a rational hom…
We extend each higher Johnson homomorphism to a crossed homomorphism from the automorphism group of a finite-rank free group to a finite-rank abelian group. We also extend each Morita homomorphism to a crossed homomorphism from the mapping class group of once-bounded surface to a finite-rank abelian group. This improves on the author's previous results [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 7 (2007):1297-1326]. To prove the first result, we express the higher Johnson homomorphisms as coboundary maps in group cohomology. Our methods involve the topology of nilpotent homogeneous spaces and lattices in nilpotent …
We extend certain homomorphisms defined on the higher Torelli subgroups of the mapping class group to crossed homomorphisms defined on the entire mapping class group. In particular, for every $k\geq 2$, we construct a crossed homomorphism $ε_k$ which extends Morita's homomorphism $\tilde τ_k$ to the entire mapping class group. From this crossed homomorphism we also obtain a crossed homomorphism extending the $k$th Johnson homomorphism $τ_k$ to the mapping class group. D. Johnson and S. Morita obtained their respective homomorphisms by considering the action of the mapping class group on the ni…
In the 1970s, Birman-Craggs-Johnson used Rochlin's invariant for homology 3-spheres to construct a remarkable surjective homomorphism sigma:I_{g,1}->B_3, where I_{g,1} is the Torelli group and B_3 is a certain F_2-vector space of Boolean (square-free) polynomials. By pulling back cohomology classes and evaluating them on abelian cycles, we construct 16g^4 + O(g^3) dimensions worth of nontrivial elements of H^2(I_{g,1}, F_2) which cannot be detected rationally. These classes in fact restrict to nontrivial classes in the cohomology of the subgroup K_{g,1} < I_{g,1} generated by Dehn twists about…
Let G be a real semisimple Lie group with no compact factors and finite centre, and let $Λ$ be a lattice in G. Suppose that there exists a homomorphism from $Λ$ to the outer automorphism group of a right-angled Artin group $A_Γ$ with infinite image. We give an upper bound to the real rank of G that is determined by the structure of cliques in $Γ$. An essential tool is the Andreadakis-Johnson filtration of the Torelli subgroup $\mathcal{T}}(A_Γ)$ of $Aut(A_Γ)$. We answer a question of Day relating to the abelianisation of $\mathcal{T}}(A_Γ)$, and show that $\mathcal{T}}(A_Γ)$ and its image in $…
This is a biased survey for the Johnson homomorphisms of the automorphism groups of free groups. We just exposit some well known facts and recent developments for the Johnson homomorphisms and its related topics.
We first develop a general theory of Johnson filtrations and Johnson homomorphisms for a group $G$ acting on another group $K$ equipped with a filtration indexed by a "good" ordered commutative monoid. Then, specializing it to the case where the monoid is the additive monoid $\mathbb{N}^2$ of pairs on nonnegative integers, we obtain a theory of double Johnson filtrations and homomorphisms. We apply this theory to the mapping class group $\mathcal{M}$ of a surface $Σ_{g,1}$ with one boundary component, equipped with the normal subgroups $\bar{X}$, $\bar{Y}$ of $π_1(Σ_{g,1})$ associated to a sta…
We construct a series of homomorphisms from the $Y$-filtration on the monoid of homology cylinders to torsion modules via the mod $\mathbb{Z}$ reduction of the LMO functor. The restriction of our homomorphism to the lower central series of the Torelli group does not factor through Morita's refinement of the Johnson homomorphism. We use it to show that the abelianization of the Johnson kernel of a closed surface has torsion elements. We also determine the third graded quotient $Y_3\mathcal{IC}_{g,1}/Y_4$ of the $Y$-filtration.
This paper has two main goals. First, we give a complete, explicit, and computable solution to the problem of when two simple closed curves on a surface are equivalent under the Johnson kernel. Second, we show that the Johnson filtration and the Johnson homomorphism can be defined intrinsically on subsurfaces and prove that both are functorial under inclusions of subsurfaces. The key point is that the latter reduces the former to a finite computation, which can be carried out by hand. In particular this solves the conjugacy problem in the Johnson kernel for separating twists. Using a theorem o…
The Torelli group, I(S_g), is the subgroup of the mapping class group consisting of elements that act trivially on the homology of the surface. There are three types of elements that naturally arise in studying I(S_g): bounding pair maps, separating twists, and simply intersecting pair maps (SIP-maps). Historically the first two types of elements have been the focus of the literature on I(S_g), while SIP-maps have received relatively little attention until recently, due to an infinite presentation of I(S_g) introduced by Andrew Putman that uses all three types of elements. We will give a topol…
In this paper we prove a family of results connecting the problem of computing cup products in surface bundles to various other objects that appear in the theory of the cohomology of the mapping class group $\operatorname{Mod}_g$ and the Torelli group $\mathcal{I}_g$. We show that N. Kawazumi's twisted MMM class $m_{0,k}$ can be used to compute $k$-fold cup products in surface bundles, and that $m_{0,k}$ provides an extension of the higher Johnson invariant $τ_{k-2}$ to $H^{k-2}(\operatorname{Mod}_{g,*}, \wedge^k H_1)$. These results are used to show that the behavior of the restriction of the…
We give an explicit approach for Bockstein homomorphisms of the Hochschild cohomology of a group algebra and of a block algebra of a finite group and we show some properties. To give explicit definitions for these maps we use an additive decomposition and a Product Formula for the Hochschild cohomology of group algebras given by Siegel and Witherspoon in 1999. For k an algebraically closed field of characteristic p and G a finite group we prove an additive decomposition and a Product Formula for the cohomology algebra of a defect group of a block ideal of kG with coefficients in the source alg…
The Johnson filtration of the automorphism group of a free group is composed of those automorphisms which act trivially on nilpotent quotients of the free group. We compute cohomology classes as follows: (i) we analyze analogous classes for a subgroup of the pure symmetric automorphism group of a free group, and (ii) we analyze features of these classes which are preserved by the Johnson homomorphism. One consequence is that the ranks of the cohomology groups in any fixed dimension between 1 and n-1 increase without bound for terms deep in the Johnson filtraton.
In the present paper, we study the Sp-module structure of the cokernel of the Johnson homomorphism of the mapping class groups of surfaces. We detect the Sp-irreducible components with highest weight [1^k] (and [k]) in the cokernel. We also show that the multiplicities of them is equal to one.
Johnson's characterization of amenable groups states that a discrete group $Γ$ is amenable if and only if $H_b^{n \geq 1}(Γ; V) = 0$ for all dual normed $\mathbb{R}[Γ]$-modules V. In this paper, we extend the previous result to homomorphisms by proving the converse of the Mapping Theorem: a surjective group homomorphism $ϕ\colon Γ\to K$ has amenable kernel H if and only if the induced inflation map $H^\bullet_b(K; V^H) \to H^\bullet_b(Γ; V)$ is an isometric isomorphism for every dual normed $\mathbb{R}[Γ]$-module V. In addition, we obtain an analogous characterization for the (smaller) class o…
We prove that the first integral cohomology of pure mapping class groups of infinite type genus one surfaces is trivial. For genus zero surfaces we prove that not every homomorphism to $\mathbb{Z}$ factors through a sphere with finitely many punctures. In fact we get an uncountable family of such maps.
We prove that either the images of the mapping class groups by quantum representations are not isomorphic to higher rank lattices or else the kernels have a large number of normal generators. Further we show that the images of the mapping class groups have nontrivial 2-cohomology, at least for small levels. For this purpose we considered a series of quasi-homomorphisms on mapping class groups extending previous work of Barge and Ghys and of Gambaudo and Ghys. These quasi-homomorphisms are pull-backs of the Dupont-Guichardet-Wigner quasi-homomorphisms on pseudo-unitary groups along quantum repr…
In this paper, we consider certain descending filtrations of the $\mathrm{SL}(m,\C)$-representation algebras of free groups and free abelian groups. By using it, we introduce analogs of the Johnson homomorphisms of the automorphism groups of free groups. We show that the first homomorphisms are extended to the automorphism groups of free groups as crossed homomorphisms. Furthermore we show that the extended crossed homomorphisms induce Kawazumi's cocycles and Morita's cocycles. This works are generalization of our previous results for the $\mathrm{SL}(2,\C)$-representation algebras.
We present a method for computing the number of epimorphisms from a finitely-presented group G to a finite solvable group Γ, which generalizes a formula of Gäschutz. Key to this approach are the degree 1 and 2 cohomology groups of G, with certain twisted coefficients. As an application, we count low-index subgroups of G. We also investigate the finite solvable quotients of the Baumslag-Solitar groups, the Baumslag parafree groups, and the Artin braid groups.
We compute a twisted first cohomology group of the automorphism group of a free group with coefficients in the abelianization $V$ of the IA-automorphism group of a free group. In particular, we show that it is generated by two crossed homomorphisms constructed with the Magnus representation and the Magnus expansion due to Morita and Kawazumi respectively. As a corollary, we see that the first Johnson homomorphism does not extend to the automorphism group of a free group as a crossed homomorphism for the rank of the free group is greater than 4.
An orientation is defined on a family of curve graphs on which the Torelli group acts. It is shown that the resulting signed stable length of an element of the Torelli group is a cohomology class. This cohomology class is half the dual of the contraction of the Johnson homomorphism, the socalled "Chillingworth class".
A description of the algebra of outer derivations of a group algebra of a finitely presented discrete group is given in terms of the Cayley complex of the groupoid of the adjoint action of the group. This task is a smooth version of Johnson's problem concerning the derivations of a group algebra. It is shown that the algebra of outer derivations is isomorphic to the group of the one-dimensional cohomology with compact supports of the Cayley complex over the field of complex numbers.
In this paper we study the structure of the rational cohomology groups of the IA-automorphism group $\mathrm{IA}_3$ of a free group of rank three by using combinatorial group theory and representation theory. In particular, we detect non-trivial irreducible component in the second cohomology group of $\mathrm{IA}_3$, which does not contained in the image of the cup product map of the first cohomology groups. We also show that the image of the triple cup product map of the first cohomology groups in the third cohomology group is trivial. As a corollary, we obtain that the fourth term of the low…
Several well-known open questions (such as: are all groups sofic/hyperlinear?) have a common form: can all groups be approximated by asymptotic homomorphisms into the symmetric groups $\mathrm{Sym}(n)$ (in the sofic case) or the finite dimensional unitary groups ${\rm U}(n)$ (in the hyperlinear case)? In the case of ${\rm U}(n)$, the question can be asked with respect to different metrics and norms. This paper answers, for the first time, one of these versions, showing that there exist fintely presented groups which are not approximated by ${\rm U}(n)$ with respect to the Frobenius norm $\|T\|…
We introduce a way of describing cohomology of the symmetric groups with coefficients in Specht modules over Z or F_p. We study i-th-degree cohomology for i in {0,1,2}. The focus lies on the isomorphism type of second-degree cohomology of integral Specht modules. Unfortunately, only in few cases can we determine this exactly. In many cases we obtain only some information about the prime divisors of the cohomology group's order. The most important tools we use are the Zassenhaus algorithm, the Branching Rules, Bockstein type homomorphisms, and the results from [Burichenko et al., 1996].
For any reductive group G and a parabolic subgroup P with its Levi subgroup L, the first author in [Ku2] introduced a ring homomorphism $ ξ^P_λ: Rep^\mathbb{C}_{λ-poly}(L) \to H^*(G/P, \mathbb{C})$, where $ Rep^\mathbb{C}_{λ-poly}(L)$ is a certain subring of the complexified representation ring of L (depending upon the choice of an irreducible representation $V(λ)$ of G with highest weight $λ$). In this paper we study this homomorphism for G=Sp(2n) and its maximal parabolic subgroups $P_{n-k}$ for any $1\leq k\leq n$ (with the choice of $V(λ) $ to be the defining representation $V(ω_1) $ in $\…
We show that topological amenability of an action of a countable discrete group on a compact space is equivalent to the existence of an invariant mean for the action. We prove also that this is equivalent to vanishing of bounded cohomology for a class of Banach G-modules associated to the action, as well as to vanishing of a specific cohomology class. In the case when the compact space is a point our result reduces to a classic theorem of B.E. Johnson characterising amenability of groups. In the case when the compact space is the Stone-Čech compactification of the group we obtain a cohomologic…
Let $G$, $R$ and $A$ be topological groups. Suppose that $G$ and $R$ act continuously on $A$, and $G$ acts continuously on $R$. In this paper, we define a partially crossed topological $G-R$-bimodule $(A,μ)$, where $μ:A\rightarrow R$ is a continuous homomorphism. Let $Der_{c}(G,(A,μ))$ be the set of all $(α,r)$ such that $α:G\rightarrow A$ is a continuous crossed homomorphism and $μα(g)=r^{g}r^{-1}$. We introduce a topology on $Der_{c}(G,(A,μ))$. We show that $Der_{c}(G,(A,μ))$ is a topological group, wherever $G$ and $R$ are locally compact. We define the first cohomology, $H^{1}(G,(A,μ))$, o…
