Braided Thompson groups with and without quasimorphisms


Loading...

Date

2024

Publication Type

Journal Article

ETH Bibliography

yes

Citations

Altmetric

Data

Abstract

We study quasimorphisms and bounded cohomology of a variety of braided versions of Thompson groups. Our first main result is that the Brin--Dehornoy braided Thompson group $bV$ has an infinite-dimensional space of quasimorphisms and thus infinite-dimensional second bounded cohomology. This implies that despite being perfect, $bV$ is not uniformly perfect, in contrast to Thompson's group $V$. We also prove that relatives of $bV$ like the ribbon braided Thompson group $rV$ and the pure braided Thompson group $bF$ similarly have an infinite-dimensional space of quasimorphisms. Our second main result is that, in stark contrast, the close relative of $bV$ denoted $\hat{bV}$, which was introduced concurrently by Brin, has trivial second bounded cohomology. This makes $\hat{bV}$ the first example of a left-orderable group of type $\operatorname{F}_\infty$ that is not locally indicable and has trivial second bounded cohomology. This also makes $\hat{bV}$ an interesting example of a subgroup of the mapping class group of the plane minus a Cantor set that is non-amenable but has trivial second bounded cohomology, behaviour that cannot happen for finite-type mapping class groups.

Publication status

published

Editor

Book title

Volume

24 (3)

Pages / Article No.

1601 - 1622

Publisher

Mathematical Sciences Publishers

Event

Edition / version

Methods

Software

Geographic location

Date collected

Date created

Subject

braid group; Thompson group; quasimorphism; bounded cohomology; uniformly perfect; big mapping class group; left-orderable group

Organisational unit

08802 - Iozzi, Alessandra (Tit.-Prof.) check_circle

Notes

Funding

Related publications and datasets

Is new version of: