Subgroups of the Torelli group

The study of the mapping class group Mod( S ) is a classical topic that is experiencing a renaissance. It lies at the juncture of geometry, topology, and group theory. This book explains as many important theorems, examples, and techniques as possible, quickly and directly, while at the same time giving full details and keeping the text nearly self-contained. The book is suitable for graduate students. A Primer on Mapping Class Groups begins by explaining the main group-theoretical properties of Mod( S ), from finite generation by Dehn twists and low-dimensional homology to the Dehn-Nielsen-Baer theorem. Along the way, central objects and tools are introduced, such as the Birman exact sequence, the complex of curves, the braid group, the symplectic representation, and the Torelli group. The book then introduces Teichmüller space and its geometry, and uses the action of Mod( S ) on it to prove the Nielsen-Thurston classification of surface homeomorphisms. Topics include the topology of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces, the connection with surface bundles, pseudo-Anosov theory, and Thurston's approach to the classification.

Let Σ be an orientable surface of finite type and let Mod(Σ) be its mapping class group. We consider actions of Mod(Σ) by semisimple isometries on complete CAT(0) spaces. If the genus of Σ is at least 3, then in any such action all Dehn twists act as elliptic isometries. The action of Mod(Σ) on the completion of Teichmüller space with the Weil-Petersson metric shows that there are interesting actions of this type. Whenever the mapping class group of a closed orientable surface of genus g acts by semisimple isometries on a complete CAT(0) space of dimension less than g it must fix a point. The mapping class group of a closed surface of genus 2 acts properly by semisimple isometries on a complete CAT(0) space of dimension 18.

This chapter deals with Dehn twists, the simplest infinite-order elements of Mod(S). It first defines Dehn twists and proves that they are nontrivial elements of the mapping class group. In particular, it considers the action of Dehn twists on simple closed curves. As one application of this study, the chapter proves that if two simple closed curves in Sɡ have geometric intersection number greater than 1, then the associated Dehn twists generate a free group of rank 2 in Mod(S). It also proves some fundamental facts about Dehn twists and describes the center of the mapping class group, along with algebraic relations that can occur between two Dehn twists. Finally, it explores three geometric operations on a surface that each induces an algebraic operation on the corresponding mapping class group: the inclusion homomorphism, the capping homomorphism, and the cutting homomorphism.

We prove that, aside from the obvious exceptions, the mapping class group of a compact orientable surface is not abstractly commensurable with any right-angled Artin group. Our argument applies to various sub- groups of the mapping class group—the subgroups generated by powers of Dehn twists and the terms of the Johnson filtration—and additionally to the outer automorphism group of a free group and to certain linear groups. There are many analogies and interconnections between the theories of right- angled Artin groups on one hand and mapping class groups on the other hand. For instance, by the work of Crisp and Wiest (13), the work of Koberda (27), and the work of the first two authors with Mangahas (12), there is an abundance of injective homomorphisms from right-angled Artin groups to mapping class groups. Also, the last two authors proved (30) that any two elements of the pure braid group either generate a free group or a free abelian group—a property shared by all right-angled Artin groups (4, Theorem 1.2). We are thus led to ask to what extent mapping class groups are the same as right-angled Artin groups. It is straightforward to see that most mapping class groups are not isomorphic to right-angled Artin groups, for instance because right-angled Artin groups are torsion free. On the other hand, mapping class groups have finite-index sub- groups that are torsion free, and so this leaves open the possibility that mapping class groups are abstractly commensurable to right-angled Artin groups, that is, that they have isomorphic finite-index subgroups. We prove that, aside from a small number of exceptions, this is not the case. We also extend this result to several classes of groups related to mapping class groups. We start by recalling some definitions. To a finite graph , we can associate a right-angled Artin grou p: this is the group with one generator for each vertex of , and one defin ing relator for each edge, namely, the commutator of the two generators corresponding to the endpoints. Let Sg,n denote a closed, connected, orientable surface of genus g with n marked points. The mapping class group Mod(Sg,n) is the group of homotopy classes of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of Sg,n preserving the set of marked points. As discussed in Koberda's paper (27, Theorem 1.5), no finite-index subgroup of Mod(Sg,n) injects into a right-angled Artin group if g ≥ 2 and (g,n) 6 (2,0); see

Infinite presentations are given for all of the higher Torelli groups of once-punctured surfaces. In the case of the classical Torelli group, a finite presentation of the corresponding groupoid is also given, and finite presentations of the classical Torelli groups acting trivially on homology modulo N are derived for all N. Furthermore, the first Johnson homomorphism, which is defined from the classical Torelli group to the third exterior power of the homology of the surface, is shown to lift to an explicit canonical 1-cocycle of the Teichmüller space. The main tool for these results is the known mapping class group invariant ideal cell decomposition of the Teichmüller space.This new 1-cocycle is mapping class group equivariant, so various contractions of its powers yield various combinatorial (co)cycles of the moduli space of curves, which are also new. Our combinatorial construction can be related to former works of Kawazumi and the first-named author with the consequence that the algebra generated by the cohomology classes represented by the new cocycles is precisely the tautological algebra of the moduli space.There is finally a discussion of prospects for similarly finding cocycle lifts of the higher Johnson homomorphisms.

We calculate the Dehn twist action on the spaces of conformal blocks of a not necessarily semisimple modular category. In particular, we give the order of the Dehn twists under the mapping class group representations of closed surfaces. For Dehn twists about non‐separating simple closed curves, we prove that this order is the order of the ribbon twist, thereby generalizing a result that De Renzi–Gainutdinov–Geer–Patureau–Mirand–Runkel obtained for the small quantum group. In the separating case, we express the order using the order of the ribbon twist on monoidal powers of the canonical end. As an application, we prove that the Johnson kernels of the mapping class groups act trivially if and only if for the canonical end the ribbon twist and double braiding with itself are trivial. We give a similar result for the visibility of the Torelli groups.

We derive two types of linearity conditions for mapping class groups of orientable surfaces: one for once-punctured surface, and the other for closed surface, respectively. For the once-punctured case, the condition is described in terms of the action of the mapping class group on the deformation space of linear representations of the fundamental group of the corresponding closed surface. For the closed case, the condition is described in terms of the vector space generated by the isotopy classes of essential simple closed curves on the corresponding surface. The latter condition also describes the linearity for the mapping class group of compact orientable surface with boundary, up to center.

We prove that the Torelli group of an oriented surface with any number of boundary components is at least exponentially distorted in the mapping class group by using Broaddus–Farb–Putman’s techniques. Further we show that the distortion of the Torelli group in the level [Formula: see text] mapping class group is the same as that in the mapping class group.

We consider finite-sheeted, regular, possibly branched covering spaces of compact surfaces with boundary and the associated liftable and symmetric mapping class groups. In particular, we classify when either of these subgroups coincides with the entire mapping class group of the surface. As a consequence, we construct infinite families of non-geometric embeddings of the braid group into mapping class groups in the sense of Wajnryb. Indeed, our embeddings map standard braid generators to products of Dehn twists about curves forming chains of arbitrary length. As key tools, we use the Birman-Hilden theorem and the action of the mapping class group on a particular fundamental groupoid of the surface.

This note has two related but independent parts. Firstly, we prove a generalisation of a recent result of Gay on the smooth mapping class group of . Secondly, we give an alternative proof of a consequence of work of Saeki, namely that the Dehn twist along the boundary sphere of a simply connected closed smooth 4‐manifold with is trivial after taking connected sums with enough copies of .

Let $S$ be an orientable, connected surface with infinitely-generated fundamental group. The main theorem states that if the genus of $S$ is finite and at least 4, then the isomorphism type of the pure mapping class group associated to $S$, denoted $\mathrm{PMap}(S)$, detects the homeomorphism type of $S$. As a corollary, every automorphism of $\mathrm{PMap}(S)$ is induced by a homeomorphism, which extends a theorem of Ivanov from the finite-type setting. In the process of proving these results, we show that $\mathrm{PMap}(S)$ is residually finite if and only if $S$ has finite genus, demonstrating that the algebraic structure of $\mathrm{PMap}(S)$ can distinguish finite- and infinite-genus surfaces. As an independent result, we also show that $\mathrm{Map}(S)$ fails to be residually finite for any infinite-type surface $S$. In addition, we give a topological generating set for $\mathrm{PMap}(S)$ equipped with the compact-open topology. In particular, if $S$ has at most one end accumulated by genus, then $\mathrm{PMap}(S)$ is topologically generated by Dehn twists, otherwise the Dehn twists along with handle shifts topologically generate.

We introduce machinery to allow ``cut-and-paste''-style inductive arguments\nin the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group. In the past these arguments\nhave been problematic because restricting the Torelli group to subsurfaces\ngives different groups depending on how the subsurfaces are embedded. We define\na category $\\TSur$ whose objects are surfaces together with a decoration\nrestricting how they can be embedded into larger surfaces and whose morphisms\nare embeddings which respect the decoration. There is a natural ``Torelli\nfunctor'' on this category which extends the usual definition of the Torelli\ngroup on a closed surface. Additionally, we prove an analogue of the Birman\nexact sequence for the Torelli groups of surfaces with boundary and use the\naction of the Torelli group on the complex of curves to find generators for the\nTorelli group. For genus $g \\geq 1$ only twists about (certain) separating\ncurves and bounding pairs are needed, while for genus $g=0$ a new type of\ngenerator (a ``commutator of a simply intersecting pair'') is needed. As a\nspecial case, our methods provide a new, more conceptual proof of the classical\nresult of Birman-Powell which says that the Torelli group on a closed surface\nis generated by twists about separating curves and bounding pairs.\n

Let [math] , for [math] , be the moduli stack of [math] –pointed, genus [math] , stable complex curves of compact type. Various characterizations and properties are obtained of both the topological and algebraic fundamental groups of the stack [math] . For instance we show that the topological fundamental groups are linear, extending to all [math] previous results of Morita and Hain for [math] and [math] .\n¶ Let [math] , for [math] , be the Teichmüller group associated with a compact Riemann surface of genus [math] with [math] points removed [math] , ie the group of homotopy classes of diffeomorphisms of [math] which preserve the orientation of [math] and a given order of its punctures. Let [math] be the normal subgroup of [math] generated by Dehn twists along separating simple closed curves (briefly s.c.c.) on [math] . The above theory yields a characterization of [math] for all [math] , improving Johnson’s classical results for closed and one-punctured surfaces in [Topology 24 (1985) 113-126].\n¶ The Torelli group [math] is the kernel of the natural representation [math] . The abelianization of the Torelli group [math] is determined for all [math] and [math] , thus completing classical results of Johnson [Topology 24 (1985) 127-144] and Mess [Topology 31 (1992) 775-790] for closed and one-punctured surfaces.\n¶ We also prove that a connected finite étale cover [math] of [math] , for [math] , has a Deligne–Mumford compactification [math] with finite fundamental group. This implies that, for [math] , any finite index subgroup of [math] containing [math] has vanishing first cohomology group, improving a result of Hain [Math. Sci. Res. Inst. Publ. 28 (1995) 97-143].

It is shown that the natural map from the mapping class groups of surfaces to the automorphism groups of free groups induces an infinite loop map on the classifying spaces of the stable groups after plus construction. The proof uses automorphisms of free groups with boundaries which play the role of mapping class groups of surfaces with several boundary components.

Consider the mapping class group Mod g,p of a surface Σ g,p of genus g with p punctures, and a finite collection {f1, . . . , fk} of mapping classes, each of which is either a Dehn twist about a simple closed curve or a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism supported on a connected subsurface. In this paper we prove that for all sufficiently large N, the mapping classes $${\{f_1^N,\ldots,f_k^N\}}$$ generate a right-angled Artin group. The right-angled Artin group which they generate can be determined from the combinatorial topology of the mapping classes themselves. When {f1, . . . , fk} are arbitrary mapping classes, we show that sufficiently large powers of these mapping classes generate a group which embeds in a right-angled Artin group in a controlled way. We establish some analogous results for real and complex hyperbolic manifolds. We also discuss the unsolvability of the isomorphism problem for finitely generated subgroups of Mod g,p , and recover the fact that the isomorphism problem for right-angled Artin groups is solvable. We thus characterize the isomorphism type of many naturally occurring subgroups of Mod g,p .