Some free groups of matrices and the Burau representation of B4

1991 ◽  
Vol 110 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-228
Author(s):  
Siegfried Moran

Using a criterion due to J. Tits [4] we shall show that it is easy to give a pair of conjugate matrices in GLn(ℂ) which freely generate a free group of rank two. The difficulty lies in producing two such matrices whose freeness does not follow directly from the known freeness of two 2 × 2 matrices. Finally we show that the well known problem as to whether the Burau representation of Artin's braid group B4 is faithful turns out to be arbitrarily close to being true in a large number of ways. Thanks are due to the referee for his helpful comments.

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (08) ◽  
pp. 1087-1098 ◽  
Author(s):  
VALERIJ G. BARDAKOV

We construct a linear representation of the group IA (Fn) of IA-automorphisms of a free group Fn, an extension of the Gassner representation of the pure braid group Pn. Although the problem of faithfulness of the Gassner representation is still open for n > 3, we prove that the restriction of our representation to the group of basis conjugating automorphisms Cbn contains a non-trivial kernel even if n = 2. We construct also an extension of the Burau representation to the group of conjugating automorphisms Cn. This representation is not faithful for n ≥ 2.


Author(s):  
Mohammad N. Abdulrahim ◽  
Nibal H. Kassem

We consider Wada's representation as a twisted version of the standard action of the braid group,Bn, on the free group withngenerators. Constructing a free group,Gnm, of ranknm, we compose Cohen's mapBn→Bnmand the embeddingBnm→Aut(Gnm)via Wada's map. We prove that the composition factors of the obtained representation are one copy of Burau representation andm−1copies of the standard representation after changing the parameterttotkin the definitions of the Burau and standard representations. This is a generalization of our previous result concerning the standard Artin representation of the braid group.


2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (12) ◽  
pp. 1550065
Author(s):  
Stefan Witzel ◽  
Matthew C. B. Zaremsky

It is known that the Burau representation of the 4-strand braid group is faithful if and only if certain matrices f and k generate a (non-abelian) free group. Regarding f and k as isometries of a Euclidean building, we show that f3 and k3 generate a free group. We give two proofs, one utilizing the metric geometry of the building, and the other using simplicial retractions.


2003 ◽  
Vol 02 (02) ◽  
pp. 169-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
MOHAMMAD N. ABDULRAHIM

A lot of linear representations of the braid group, Bn, arise as a result of treating braids as automorphisms of a free group. In this paper, we consider the composition of F. R. Cohen's map Bn → Bnk and the embedding Bnk → Aut (Fnk). This gives us a linear representation of Bn whose composition factors are one copy of the Burau representation and k - 1 copies of the standard representation, a representation investigated by I. Sysoeva.


2011 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
ADAM CLAY

AbstractWe show that the restriction of the Dehornoy ordering to an appropriate free subgroup of the three-strand braid group defines a left-ordering of the free group on k generators, k>1, that has no convex subgroups.


1949 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-190 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Hall

This paper has as its chief aim the establishment of two formulae associated with subgroups of finite index in free groups. The first of these (Theorem 3.1) gives an expression for the total length of the free generators of a subgroup U of the free group Fr with r generators. The second (Theorem 5.2) gives a recursion formula for calculating the number of distinct subgroups of index n in Fr.Of some independent interest are two theorems used which do not involve any finiteness conditions. These are concerned with ways of determining a subgroup U of F.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (02) ◽  
pp. 273-292
Author(s):  
Charalampos Stylianakis

In this paper we show that the normal closure of the [Formula: see text]th power of a half-twist has infinite index in the mapping class group of a punctured sphere if [Formula: see text] is at least five. Furthermore, in some cases we prove that the quotient of the mapping class group of the punctured sphere by the normal closure of a power of a half-twist contains a free abelian subgroup. As a corollary we prove that the quotient of the hyperelliptic mapping class group of a surface of genus at least two by the normal closure of the [Formula: see text]th power of a Dehn twist has infinite order, and for some integers [Formula: see text] the quotient contains a free group. As a second corollary we recover a result of Coxeter: the normal closure of the [Formula: see text]th power of a half-twist in the braid group of at least four strands has infinite index. Our method is to reformulate the Jones representation of the mapping class group of a punctured sphere, using the action of Hecke algebras on [Formula: see text]-graphs, as introduced by Kazhdan–Lusztig.


1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 325-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Gaboriau ◽  
G. Levitt ◽  
M. Lustig

Let α be an automorphism of a free group of rank n. The Scott conjecture, proved by Bestvina-Handel, asserts that the fixed subgroup of α has rank at most n. We give a short alternative proof of this result using R-trees.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 590-604
Author(s):  
M. Fazeel Anwar ◽  
Mairaj Bibi ◽  
Muhammad Saeed Akram

In \cite{levin}, Levin conjectured that every equation is solvable over a torsion free group. In this paper we consider a nonsingular equation $g_{1}tg_{2}t g_{3}t g_{4} t g_{5} t g_{6} t^{-1} g_{7} t g_{8}t \\ g_{9}t^{-1} = 1$ of length $9$ and show that it is solvable over torsion free groups modulo some exceptional cases.


2015 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
MORITZ RODENHAUSEN ◽  
RICHARD D. WADE

AbstractWe 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(Fn). This gives restrictions to actions of Aut(Fn) on CAT(0) spaces.


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