The Birman exact sequence does not virtually split

Lei Chen; Nick Salter

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arXiv · 1804.11235

The Birman exact sequence does not virtually split

Lei Chen·Nick Salter

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Abstract

This paper answers a basic question about the Birman exact sequence in the theory of mapping class groups. We prove that the Birman exact sequence does not admit a section over any subgroup $\Gamma$ contained in the Torelli group with finite index. A fortiori this proves that there is no section of the Birman exact sequence for any finite-index subgroup of the full mapping class group. This theorem was announced in a 1990 preprint of G. Mess, but an error was uncovered and described in a recent paper of the first author.

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Lei Chen, Nick Salter. 2018-04-30. The Birman exact sequence does not virtually split. https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.11235

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