arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Kenneth J. Shackleton.
We prove a number of convexity results for strata of the diagonal pants graph of a surface, in analogy with the extrinsic geometric properties of strata in the Weil-Petersson completion. As a consequence, we exhibit convex flat subgraphs of every possible rank inside the diagonal pants graph.
For a knot $K$, Kakimizu introduced a simplicial complex whose vertices are all the isotopy classes of minimal genus spanning surfaces for $K$. The first purpose of this paper is to prove the 1-skeleton of this complex has diameter bounded by a function quadratic in knot genus, whenever $K$ is atoroidal. The second purpose of this paper is to prove the intersection number of two minimal genus spanning surfaces for $K$ is also bounded by a function quadratic in knot genus, whenever $K$ is atoroidal. As one application, we prove the simple connectivity of Kakimizu's complex among all atoroidal genus 1 knots.
Our main theorem identifies a class of totally geodesic subgraphs of the 1-skeleton of the pants complex, each isomorphic to the product of two Farey graphs. We deduce the existence of many convex planes in the 1-skeleton of the pants complex.
Our main theorem asserts that every Farey graph embedded in the 1-skeleton of the pants complex of any finite type surface is totally geodesic.
We quantify the generation of free subgroups of surface mapping class groups by pseudo-Anosov mapping classes in terms of their translation distance and the distance between their axes. Our methods make reference to \teichmuller space only.
In all possible cases, we prove that local embeddings between two curve complexes whose complexities do not increase from domain to codomain are induced by surface homeomorphism. This is our first main result. From this we can deduce our second, a strong local co-Hopfian result for mapping class groups.
We give a combinatorial criterion that implies both the non-strong relative hyperbolicity and the one-endedness of a finitely generated group. We use this to show that many important classes of groups do not admit a strong relatively hyperbolic group structure and have one end. Applications include surface mapping class groups, the Torelli group, (special) automorphism and outer automorphism groups of most free groups, and the three-dimensional Heisenberg group. Our final application is to Thompson's group F.
We show that the mapping class group of an orientable finite type surface has uniformly exponential growth, as well as various closely related groups. This provides further evidence that mapping class groups may be linear.
We give explicit bounds on the intersection number between any curve on a tight multigeodesic and the two ending curves. We use this to construct all tight multigeodesics and so conclude that distances in the curve graph are computable. The algorithm applies to all surfaces. We recover the finiteness result of Masur-Minsky for tight goedesics. The central argument makes no use of the geometric limit arguments seen in the recent work of Masur-Minsky (2000) and of Bowditch (2003), and is enough to deduce a computable version of the acylindricity theorem of Bowditch.