On the Cohomology of the Mapping Class Group of the Punctured Projective Plane

The mapping class group $\Gamma ^k(N_g)$ of a non-orientable surface with punctures is studied via classical homotopy theory of configuration spaces. In particular, we obtain a non-orientable version of the Birman exact sequence. In the case of ${\mathbb{R}} \textrm{P}^2$, we analyze the Serre spectral sequence of a fiber bundle $F_k({\mathbb{R}}{\textrm{P}}^{2}) / \Sigma _k \to X_k \to BSO(3)$ where $X_k$ is a $K(\Gamma ^k({\mathbb{R}} \textrm{P}^2),1)$ and $F_k({\mathbb{R}}{\textrm{P}}^{2}) / \Sigma _k$ denotes the configuration space of unordered $k$-tuples of distinct points in ${\mathbb{R}} \textrm{P}^2$. As a consequence, we express the mod-2 cohomology of $\Gamma ^k({\mathbb{R}} \textrm{P}^2)$ in terms of that of $F_k({\mathbb{R}}{\textrm{P}}^{2}) / \Sigma _k$.