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New York Journal of Mathematics
Volume 30 (2024), 1235-1263

  

Valeriy G. Bardakov, Pravin Kumar, and Mahender Singh

Brunnian planar braids and simplicial groups

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Published: September 16, 2024.
Keywords: Brunnian twin, Cohen twin, doodle, homotopy group, Milnor construction, pure twin group, simplicial group, twin group.
Subject [2020]: Primary 20F55, 20F36; Secondary 18N50.

Abstract
Twin groups are planar analogues of Artin braid groups and play a crucial role in the Alexander-Markov correspondence for the isotopy classes of immersed circles on the 2-sphere without triple and higher intersections. These groups admit diagrammatic representations, leading to maps obtained by the addition and deletion of strands. This paper explores Brunnian twin groups, which are subgroups of twin groups composed of twins that become trivial when any of their strands are deleted. We establish that Brunnian twin groups consisting of more than two strands are free groups. Furthermore, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition for a Brunnian doodle on the 2-sphere to be the closure of a Brunnian twin. Additionally, we delve into two generalizations of Brunnian twins, namely, k-decomposable twins and Cohen twins, and prove some structural results about these groups. We also investigate a simplicial structure on pure twin groups that admits a simplicial homomorphism from Milnor's construction of the simplicial 2-sphere. This gives a possibility to provide a combinatorial description of homotopy groups of the 2-sphere in terms of pure twins.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the anonymous referee for many valuable suggestions. Valeriy Bardakov is supported by the state contract of the Sobolev Institute of Mathematics, SB RAS (No. I.1.5, Project FWNF-2022-0009). Pravin Kumar is supported by the PMRF fellowship at IISER Mohali. Mahender Singh is supported by the Swarna Jayanti Fellowship grants DST/SJF/MSA-02/2018-19 and SB/SJF/2019-20/04.


Author information

Valeriy G. Bardakov
Sobolev Institute of Mathematics
Acad. Koptyug ave. 4, 630090 Novosibirsk, Russia;
Novosibirsk State Agrarian University
Dobrolyubova str., 160, 630039 Novosibirsk, Russia;
Regional Scientific and Educational Mathematical Center of Tomsk State University
Lenin ave. 36, 634009 Tomsk, Russia

bardakov@math.nsc.ru

Pravin Kumar
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali
Sector 81, SAS Nagar, P O Manauli, Punjab 140306, India

pravin444enaj@gmail.com

Mahender Singh
Department of Mathematical Sciences
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Mohali
Sector 81, SAS Nagar, P O Manauli, Punjab 140306, India

mahender@iisermohali.ac.in