We show that the fundamental groups of smooth $4$-manifolds that admit geometric decompositions in the sense of Thurston have asymptotic dimension at most four, and equal to four when aspherical. We also show that closed $3$-manifold groups have asymptotic dimension at most three. Our proof method yields that the asymptotic dimension of closed $3$-dimensional Alexandrov spaces is at most three. Thus, we obtain that the Novikov conjecture holds for closed $4$-manifolds with such a geometric decomposition and for closed $3$-dimensional Alexandrov spaces. Consequences of these results include a vanishing result for the Yamabe invariant of certain $0$-surgered geometric $4$-manifolds and the existence of zero in the spectrum of aspherical smooth $4$-manifolds with a geometric decomposition.

We study the relative $\mathrm {SU}(2,1)$-character varieties of the one-holed torus, and the action of the mapping class group on them. We use an explicit description of the character variety of the free group of rank two in $\mathrm {SU}(2,1)$ in terms of traces, which allow us to describe the topology of the character variety. We then combine this description with a generalization of the Farey graph adapted to this new combinatorial setting, using ideas introduced by Bowditch. Using these tools, we can describe an open domain of discontinuity for the action of the mapping class group which strictly contains the set of convex cocompact characters, and we give several characterizations of representations in this domain.

We study the length of short cycles on uniformly random metric maps (also known as ribbon graphs) of large genus using a Teichmüller theory approach. We establish that, as the genus tends to infinity, the length spectrum converges to a Poisson point process with an explicit intensity. This result extends the work of Janson and Louf to the multi-faced case.

Let S be an orientable, connected surface of finite topological type, with genus $g \leqslant 2$, empty boundary and complexity at least 2; we prove that any graph endomorphism of the curve graph of S is actually an automorphism. Also, as a complement of the author’s previous results, we prove that under mild conditions on the complexity of the underlying surfaces, any graph morphism between curve graphs is induced by a homeomorphism of the surfaces.

To prove these results, we construct a finite subgraph whose union of iterated rigid expansions is the curve graph $\mathcal{C}(S)$. The sets constructed, and the method of rigid expansion, are closely related to Aramayona and Leininger’s finite rigid sets. We prove as a consequence that Aramayona and Leininger’s rigid set also exhausts $\mathcal{C}(S)$ via rigid expansions. The combinatorial rigidity results follow as an immediate consequence, based on the author’s previous results.

We study the problem of conjugating a diffeomorphism of the interval to (positive) powers of itself. Although this is always possible for homeomorphisms, the smooth setting is rather interesting. Besides the obvious obstruction given by hyperbolic fixed points, several other aspects need to be considered. As concrete results we show that, in class C1, if we restrict to the (closed) subset of diffeomorphisms having only parabolic fixed points, the set of diffeomorphisms that are conjugate to their powers is dense, but its complement is generic. In higher regularity, however, the complementary set contains an open and dense set. The text is complemented with several remarks and results concerning distortion elements of the group of diffeomorphisms of the interval in several regularities.

We study the behaviour of Kauffman bracket skein modules of 3-manifolds under gluing along surfaces. For this we extend this notion to $3$-manifolds with marking consisting of open intervals and circles in the boundary. The new module is called the stated skein module.

The first results concern non-injectivity of certain natural maps defined when forming connected sums along spheres or disks. These maps are injective for surfaces or for generic quantum parameter, but we show that in general they are not when the quantum parameter is a root of 1. We show that when the quantum parameter is a root of 1, the empty skein is zero in a connected sum where each constituent manifold has non-empty marking. We also prove various non-injectivity results for the Chebyshev-Frobenius map and the map induced by deleting marked balls.

We then interpret stated skein modules as a monoidal symmetric functor from a category of “decorated cobordisms” to a category of algebras and their bimodules. We apply this to deduce properties of stated skein modules as a Van-Kampen like theorem, a computation through Heegaard decompositions and a relation to Hochshild homology for trivial circle bundles over surfaces.

Anosov representations of hyperbolic groups form a rich class of representations that are closely related to geometric structures on closed manifolds. Any Anosov representation $\rho :\Gamma \to G$ admits cocompact domains of discontinuity in flag varieties $G/Q$ [GW12, KLP18] endowing the compact quotient manifolds $M_\rho $ with a $(G,G/Q)$–structure. In general, the topology of $M_\rho $ can be quite complicated.

In this article, we will focus on the special case when $\Gamma $ is a the fundamental group of a closed (real or complex) hyperbolic manifold N and $\rho $ is a deformation of a (twisted) lattice embedding $\Gamma \to \mathrm {Isom}^\circ (\mathbb {H}_{\mathbb {K}}) \to G$ through Anosov representations. In this case, we prove that $M_\rho $ is a smooth fiber bundle over N, and we describe the structure group of this bundle and compute its invariants. This theorem applies in particular to most representations in higher rank Teichmüller spaces, as well as convex divisible representations, AdS-quasi-Fuchsian representations and $\mathbb {H}_{p,q}$–convex cocompact representations.

Even when $M_\rho \to N$ is a fiber bundle, it is often very difficult to determine the fiber. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the special case when N is a surface, $\rho $ a quasi-Hitchin representation into $\mathrm {Sp}(4,{\mathbb C})$, and $M_\rho $ carries a $(\mathrm {Sp}(4,{{\mathbb C}}),\mathrm {Lag}({{\mathbb C}}^4))$–structure. We show that in this case the fiber is homeomorphic to ${{\mathbb C}}\mathbb {P}^2 \# \overline {{{\mathbb C}}\mathbb {P}}^2$.

This fiber bundle $M_\rho \to N$ is of particular interest in the context of possible generalizations of Bers’ double uniformization theorem in the context of higher rank Teichmüller spaces, since for Hitchin-representations it contains two copies of the locally symmetric space associated to $\rho (\Gamma )$. Our result uses the classification of smooth $4$–manifolds, the study of the $\mathrm {SL}(2, {{\mathbb C}})$–orbits of $\mathrm {Lag}({{\mathbb C}}^4)$ and the identification of $\mathrm {Lag}({{\mathbb C}}^4)$ with the space of (unlabelled) regular ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra and their degenerations.

Let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ be the mapping class group of the closed orientable surface of genus $g \geq 1$, and let $\mathrm{LMod}_{p}(X)$ be the liftable mapping class group associated with a finite-sheeted branched cover $p:S \to X$, where X is a hyperbolic surface. For $k \geq 2$, let $p_k: S_{k(g-1)+1} \to S_g$ be the standard k-sheeted regular cyclic cover. In this paper, we show that $\{\mathrm{LMod}_{p_k}(S_g)\}_{k \geq 2}$ forms an infinite family of self-normalising subgroups in $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$, which are also maximal when k is prime. Furthermore, we derive explicit finite generating sets for $\mathrm{LMod}_{p_k}(S_g)$ for $g \geq 3$ and $k \geq 2$, and $\mathrm{LMod}_{p_2}(S_2)$. For $g \geq 2$, as an application of our main result, we also derive a generating set for $\mathrm{LMod}_{p_2}(S_g) \cap C_{\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)}(\iota)$, where $C_{\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)}(\iota)$ is the centraliser of the hyperelliptic involution $\iota \in \mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$. Let $\mathcal{L}$ be the infinite ladder surface, and let $q_g : \mathcal{L} \to S_g$ be the standard infinite-sheeted cover induced by $\langle h^{g-1} \rangle$ where h is the standard handle shift on $\mathcal{L}$. As a final application, we derive a finite generating set for $\mathrm{LMod}_{q_g}(S_g)$ for $g \geq 3$.

Inspired by work of Szymik and Wahl on the homology of Higman–Thompson groups, we establish a general connection between ample groupoids, topological full groups, algebraic K-theory spectra and infinite loop spaces, based on the construction of small permutative categories of compact open bisections. This allows us to analyse homological invariants of topological full groups in terms of homology for ample groupoids.

Applications include complete rational computations, general vanishing and acyclicity results for group homology of topological full groups as well as a proof of Matui’s AH-conjecture for all minimal, ample groupoids with comparison.

This paper considers the large N limit of Wilson loops for the two-dimensional Euclidean Yang–Mills measure on all orientable compact surfaces of genus larger or equal to $1$, with a structure group given by a classical compact matrix Lie group. Our main theorem shows the convergence of all Wilson loops in probability, given that it holds true on a restricted class of loops, obtained as a modification of geodesic paths. Combined with the result of [20], a corollary is the convergence of all Wilson loops on the torus. Unlike the sphere case, we show that the limiting object is remarkably expressed thanks to the master field on the plane defined in [3, 39], and we conjecture that this phenomenon is also valid for all surfaces of higher genus. We prove that this conjecture holds true whenever it does for the restricted class of loops of the main theorem. Our result on the torus justifies the introduction of an interpolation between free and classical convolution of probability measures, defined with the free unitary Brownian motion but differing from t-freeness of [5] that was defined in terms of the liberation process of Voiculescu [67]. In contrast to [20], our main tool is a fine use of Makeenko–Migdal equations, proving uniqueness of their solution under suitable assumptions, and generalising the arguments of [21, 33].

We prove that a group $\Gamma $ admits a discrete, topological (equivalently, smooth) action on some simply connected 3-manifold if and only if $\Gamma $ has a Cayley complex embeddable—with certain natural restrictions—in one of the following four 3-manifolds: (i) $\mathbb {S}^3$, (ii) $\mathbb {R}^3$, (iii) $\mathbb {S}^2 \times \mathbb R$, and (iv) the complement of a tame Cantor set in $\mathbb {S}^3$. The fact that these are the only simply connected 3-manifolds that allow such actions is a consequence of the Thurston–Perelman geometrization theorem.

We define and study graphs associated to hexagon decompositions of surfaces by curves and arcs. One of the variants is shown to be quasi-isometric to the pants graph, whereas the other variant is quasi-isometric to (a Cayley graph of) the mapping class group.

Given a group G acting faithfully on a set S, we characterize precisely when the twisted Brin–Thompson group SVG is finitely presented. The answer is that SVG is finitely presented if and only if we have the following: G is finitely presented, the action of G on S has finitely many orbits of two-element subsets of S, and the stabilizer in G of any element of S is finitely generated. Since twisted Brin–Thompson groups are simple, a consequence is that any subgroup of a group admitting an action as above satisfies the Boone–Higman conjecture. In the course of proving this, we also establish a sufficient condition for a group acting cocompactly on a simply connected complex to be finitely presented, even if certain edge stabilizers are not finitely generated, which may be of independent interest.

In the study of plane curves, one of the problems is to classify the embedded topology of plane curves in the complex projective plane that have a given fixed combinatorial type, where the combinatorial type of a plane curve is data equivalent to the embedded topology in its tubular neighborhood. A pair of plane curves with the same combinatorial type but distinct embedded topology is called a Zariski pair. In this paper, we consider Zariski pairs consisting of conic-line arrangements that arise from Poncelet’s closure theorem. We study unramified double covers of the union of two conics that are induced by a $2m$-sided Poncelet transverse. As an application, we show the existence of families of Zariski pairs of degree $2m+6$ for $m\geq 2$ that consist of reducible curves having two conics and $2m+2$ lines as irreducible components.

We introduce the notion of the equivariant covering type of a space X on which a finite group G acts and study its properties. The equivariant covering type measures the size of G-equivariant good covers of X and is thus an extension of the covering type of a space, introduced by Karoubi and Weibel. We show that the equivariant covering type is a G-homotopy invariant and describe its relation with other G-invariants, like the equivariant LS-category, G-genus, and the multiplicative structures of equivariant cohomology theories. We also compute the G-covering type of regular G-graphs, give estimates for orientation-preserving actions on surfaces and for the projectivizations of complex representations of G and cohomology spheres. As an application, we derive estimates of sizes of minimal G-triangulations for various G-spaces.

We provide a complete description of realizable period representations for meromorphic differentials on Riemann surfaces with prescribed orders of zeros and poles, hyperelliptic structure and spin parity.

We recover Reidemeister’s theorem using $\mathcal {C}^{\infty }$ functions and transversality.

We investigate when a group of the form $G\times \mathbb {Z}^m\ (m\geq 1)$ has the finitely generated fixed subgroup property of automorphisms ($\mathrm {FGFP_a}$), by using the BNS-invariant, and provide some partial answers and nontrivial examples.

In Cartan’s PhD thesis, there is a formula defining a certain rank 8 vector distribution in dimension 15, whose algebra of authomorphism is the split real form of the simple exceptional complex Lie algebra $\mathfrak {f}_4$. Cartan’s formula is written in the standard Cartesian coordinates in $\mathbb {R}^{15}$. In the present paper, we explain how to find analogous formulae for the flat models of any bracket generating distribution $\mathcal D$ whose symbol algebra $\mathfrak {n}({\mathcal D})$ is constant and 2-step graded, $\mathfrak {n}({\mathcal D})=\mathfrak {n}_{-2}\oplus \mathfrak {n}_{-1}$.

The formula is given in terms of a solution to a certain system of linear algebraic equations determined by two representations $(\rho ,\mathfrak {n}_{-1})$ and $(\tau ,\mathfrak {n}_{-2})$ of a Lie algebra $\mathfrak {n}_{00}$ contained in the $0$th order Tanaka prolongation $\mathfrak {n}_0$ of $\mathfrak {n}({\mathcal D})$.

Numerous examples are provided, with particular emphasis put on the distributions with symmetries being real forms of simple exceptional Lie algebras $\mathfrak {f}_4$ and $\mathfrak {e}_6$.