For surface groups and right-angled Artin groups, we prove lower bounds on the shortest word in the generators representing a nontrivial element of the kth term of the lower central series.

We investigate the problem of when big mapping class groups are generated by involutions. Restricting our attention to the class of self-similar surfaces, which are surfaces with self-similar ends space, as defined by Mann and Rafi, and with 0 or infinite genus, we show that, when the set of maximal ends is infinite, then the mapping class groups of these surfaces are generated by involutions, normally generated by a single involution, and uniformly perfect. In fact, we derive this statement as a corollary of the corresponding statement for the homeomorphism groups of these surfaces. On the other hand, among self-similar surfaces with one maximal end, we produce infinitely many examples in which their big mapping class groups are neither perfect nor generated by torsion elements. These groups also do not have the automatic continuity property.

We give a new proof of rationality of stable commutator length (scl) of certain elements in surface groups: those represented by curves that do not fill the surface. Such elements always admit extremal surfaces for scl. These results also hold more generally for non-filling $1$-chains.

It was previously shown by Grunewald and Lubotzky that the automorphism group of a free group, $\text{Aut}(F_n)$, has a large collection of virtual arithmetic quotients. Analogous results were proved for the mapping class group by Looijenga and by Grunewald, Larsen, Lubotzky, and Malestein. In this paper, we prove analogous results for the automorphism group of a right-angled Artin group for a large collection of defining graphs. As a corollary of our methods we produce new virtual arithmetic quotients of $\text{Aut}(F_n)$ for $n \geq 4$ where $k$th powers of all transvections act trivially for some fixed $k$. Thus, for some values of $k$, we deduce that the quotient of $\text{Aut}(F_n)$ by the subgroup generated by $k$th powers of transvections contains nonabelian free groups. This expands on results of Malestein and Putman and of Bridson and Vogtmann.

We construct examples of finite covers of punctured surfaces where the first rational homology is not spanned by lifts of simple closed curves. More generally, for any set O subset of F-n which is contained in the union of finitely many Aut(F-n)-orbits, we construct finite-index normal subgroups of F-n whose first rational homology is not spanned by powers of elements of O. These examples answer questions of Farb and Hensel, Kent, Looijenga, and Marche. We also show that the quotient of Out(F-n) by the subgroup generated by kth powers of transvections often contains infinite-order elements, strengthening a result of Bridson and Vogtmann that it is often infinite. Finally, for any set O subset of F-n which is contained in the union of finitely many Aut(F-n)-orbits, we construct integral linear representations of free groups that have infinite image and that map all elements of O to torsion elements.

Answering a question of Farb-Leininger-Margalit, we give explicit lower bounds for the dilatations of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes lying in the kth term of the Johnson filtration of the mapping class group.

We give a combinatorial characterization of generic frameworks that are minimally rigid under the additional constraint of maintaining symmetry with respect to a finite order rotation or a reflection. To establish these results, we develop a new technique for deriving linear representations of sparsity matroids on colored graphs and extend the direction network method of proving rigidity characterizations to handle reflections.

To every $Q$-irreducible representation $r$ of a finite group $H$, there corresponds a simple factor $A$ of $Q[H]$ with an involution $\tau$. To this pair $(A,\tau)$, we associate an arithmetic group $\Omega$ consisting of all $(2g-2)\times (2g-2)$ matrices over a natural order of $A^{op}$ which preserve a natural skew-Hermitian sesquilinear form on $A^{2g-2}$. We show that if $H$ is generated by less than $g$ elements, then $\Omega$ is a virtual quotient of the mapping class group $Mod(\Sigma_g)$, i.e. a finite index subgroup of $\Omega$ is a quotient of a finite index subgroup of $\Mod(\Sigma_g)$. This shows that the mapping class group has a rich family of arithmetic quotients (and Torelli subgroups) for which the classical quotient $Sp(2g, Z)$ is just a first case in a list, the case corresponding to the trivial group $H$ and the trivial representation. Other pairs of $H$ and $r$ give rise to many new arithmetic quotients of $Mod(\Sigma_g)$ which are defined over various (subfields of) cyclotomic fields and are of type $Sp(2m), SO(2m,2m),$ and $SU(m,m)$ for arbitrarily large $m$.

We give an algebraic characterization of when a $d$-dimensional periodic framework has no non-trivial, symmetry preserving, motion for any choice of periodicity lattice. Our condition is decidable, and we provide a simple algorithm that does not require complicated algebraic computations. In dimension $d = 2$, we give a combinatorial characterization in the special case when the the number of edge orbits is the minimum possible for ultrarigidity. All our results apply to a fully flexible, fixed area, or fixed periodicity lattice.

We give a combinatorial characterization of minimally rigid planar frameworks with orientation-preserving crystallographic symmetry, under the constraint of forced symmetry. The main theorems are proved by extending the methods of the first paper in this sequence from groups generated by a single rotation to groups generated by translations and rotations. The proof makes use of new families of matroids and submodular functions defined on crystallographic groups.

We review some recent results in the generic rigidity theory of planar frameworks with forced symmetry, giving a uniform treatment to the topic. We also give new combinatorial characterizations of minimally rigid periodic frameworks with fixed-area fundamental domain and fixed-angle fundamental domain.

We give an exponential upper and a quadratic lower bound on the number of pairwise non-isotopic simple closed curves which can be placed on a closed surface of genus $$g$$ such that any two of the curves intersects at most once. Although the gap is large, both bounds are the best known for large genus. In genus one and two, we solve the problem exactly. Our methods generalize to variants in which the allowed number of pairwise intersections is odd, even, or bounded, and to surfaces with boundary components.

We show that, for any (symmetric) finite generating set of the Torelli group of a closed surface, the probability that a random word is not pseudo-Anosov decays exponentially in the length of the word.

We give a combinatorial characterization of generic minimal rigidity for planar periodic frameworks. The characterization is a true analogue of the Maxwell-Laman Theorem from rigidity theory: it is stated in terms of a finite combinatorial object and the conditions are checkable by polynomial time combinatorial algorithms. To prove our rigidity theorem we introduce and develop periodic direction networks and Z2-graded-sparse colored graphs.

We give a combinatorial characterization of generic minimally rigid reflection frameworks. The main new idea is to study a pair of direction networks on the same graph such that one admits faithful realizations and the other has only collapsed realizations. In terms of infinitesimal rigidity, realizations of the former produce a framework and the latter certifies that this framework is infinitesimally rigid.

We study the fundamental algorithmic rigidity problems for generic frameworks periodic with respect to a fixed lattice or a finite-order rotation in the plane. For fixed-lattice frameworks we give an $O(n^2)$ algorithm for deciding generic rigidity and an O(n^3) algorithm for computing rigid components. If the order of rotation is part of the input, we give an O(n^4) algorithm for deciding rigidity; in the case where the rotation's order is 3, a more specialized algorithm solves all the fundamental algorithmic rigidity problems in O(n^2) time.

We extend our generic rigidity theory for periodic frameworks in the plane to frameworks with a broader class of crystallographic symmetry. Along the way we introduce a new class of combinatorial matroids and associated linear representation results that may be interesting in their own right. The same techniques immediately yield a Maxwell-Laman-type combinatorial characterization for frameworks embedded in 2-dimensional cones that arise as quotients of the plane by a finite order rotation.

We give various estimates of the minimal number of self-intersections of a nontrivial element of the kth term of the lower central series and derived series of the fundamental group of a surface. As an application, we obtain a new topological proof of the fact that free groups and fundamental groups of closed surfaces are residually nilpotent. Along the way, we prove that a nontrivial element of the kth term of the lower central series of a nonabelian free group has to have word length at least k in a free generating set.

Let Gamma_k be the lower central series of a surface group Gamma of a compact surface S with one boundary component. A simple question to ponder is whether a mapping class of S can be determined to be pseudo-Anosov given only the data of its action on Gamma/Gamma_k for some k. In this paper, to each mapping class f which acts trivially on Gamma/Gamma_{k+1}, we associate an invariant Psi_k(f) in End(H_1(S, Z)) which is constructed from its action on Gamma/Gamma_{k+2} . We show that if the characteristic polynomial of Psi_k(f) is irreducible over Z, then f must be pseudo-Anosov. Some explicit mapping classes are then shown to be pseudo-Anosov.