Carl-Friedrich Bödigheimer

ON THE HOMOLOGY OF CONFIGURATION SPACES

Configuration spaces appear in various contexts such as algebraic geometry, knot theory, differential topology or homotopy theory. Although intensively studied their homology is unknown except for special cases, see for example [ 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 18, 261 where different terminology and notation is used. In this article we study the Betti numbers of

Stripping and splitting decorated mapping class groups

We study decorated mapping class groups, i.e., mapping class groups of surfaces with marked points and boundary components, and their behaviour under stabilization maps with respect to the genus, the number of punctures and boundary components. Decorated mapping class groups are non-trivial extensions of the undecorated mapping class group, and the first result states that the extension is homologically trivial when one stabilizes with respect to the genus. The second result implies that one also gets splittings of homology groups when stabilizing with respect to the number of punctures and boundary components.

Configuration Models For Moduli Spaces of Riemann surfaces with boundary

In this article we consider Riemann surfacesF of genus g ≥ 0 with n ≥ 1 incoming and m ≥ 1 outgoing boundary circles, where on each incoming circle a point is marked. For the moduli space mg*(m, n) of all suchF of genusg ≥ 0 a configuration space model Radh(m, n) is described: it consists of configurations of h = 2g-2+m+n pairs of radial slits distributed over n annuli; certain combinatorial conditions must be satisfied to guarantee the genusg and exactly m outgoing circles. Our main result is a homeomorphism between Radh(m, n) and Mg*(m,n).The space Radh(m, n) is a non-compact manifold, and the complement of a subcomplex in a finite cell complex. This can be used for homological calculations. Furthermore, the family of spaces Radh(m, n ) form an operad, acting on various spaces connected to conformai field theories.

Embeddings of braid groups into mapping class groups and their homology

We construct several families of embeddings of braid groups into mapping class groups of orientable and non-orientable surfaces and prove that they induce the trivial map in stable homology in the orientable case, but not so in the non-orientable case. We show that these embeddings are non-geometric in the sense that the standard generators of the braid group are not mapped to Dehn twists.