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Dehn filling Dehn twists

Part of: Special aspects of infinite or finite groups

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2020

François Dahmani ,
Mark Hagen  and
Alessandro Sisto
François Dahmani
Affiliation:
Institut Fourier, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble, France (francois.dahmani@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr)
Mark Hagen
Affiliation:
School of Mathematics, Univ. Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom (markfhagen@posteo.net)
Alessandro Sisto
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland (sisto@math.ethz.ch)
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Abstract

Let $\Sigma _{g,p}$ be the genus–g oriented surface with p punctures, with either g > 0 or p > 3. We show that $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})/DT$ is acylindrically hyperbolic where DT is the normal subgroup of the mapping class group $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})$ generated by $K^{th}$ powers of Dehn twists about curves in $\Sigma _{g,p}$ for suitable K.

Moreover, we show that in low complexity $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})/DT$ is in fact hyperbolic. In particular, for 3g − 3 + p ⩽ 2, we show that the mapping class group $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})$ is fully residually non-elementary hyperbolic and admits an affine isometric action with unbounded orbits on some $L^q$ space. Moreover, if every hyperbolic group is residually finite, then every convex-cocompact subgroup of $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})$ is separable.

The aforementioned results follow from general theorems about composite rotating families, in the sense of [13], that come from a collection of subgroups of vertex stabilizers for the action of a group G on a hyperbolic graph X. We give conditions ensuring that the graph X/N is again hyperbolic and various properties of the action of G on X persist for the action of G/N on X/N.

Keywords

Mapping class groupsDehn twists

MSC classification

Primary: 20F65: Geometric group theory
Secondary: 20F67: Hyperbolic groups and nonpositively curved groups
Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Section A: Mathematics , Volume 151 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 28 - 51
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by The Royal Society of Edinburgh

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