We consider the Birman–Hilden inclusion $\phi\colon\Br_{2g+1}\to\Gamma_{g,1}$ of the braid group into the mapping class group of an orientable surface with boundary, and prove that $\phi$ is stably trivial in homology with twisted coefficients in the symplectic representation $H_1(\Sigma_{g,1})$ of the mapping class group; this generalises a result of Song and Tillmann regarding homology with constant coefficients. Furthermore we show that the stable homology of the braid group with coefficients in $\phi^*(H_1(\Sigma_{g,1}))$ has only 4-torsion.

In this paper, we study distance one surgeries between lens spaces L(p, 1) with p ≥ 5 prime and lens spaces L(n, 1) for $$n \in \mathbb{Z}$$ and band surgeries from T (2, p) to T (2, n). In particular, we prove that L(n, 1) is obtained by a distance one surgery from L(5, 1) only if n=±1, 4, ±5, 6 or ±9, and L(n, 1) is obtained by a distance one surgery from L(7, 1) if and only if n=±1, 3, 6, 7, 8 or 11.

In this paper we study various aspects of porosities for conformal fractals. We first explore porosity in the general context of infinite graph directed Markov systems (GDMS), and we show that their limit sets are porous in large (in the sense of category and dimension) subsets. We also provide natural geometric and dynamic conditions under which the limit set of a GDMS is upper porous or mean porous. On the other hand, we prove that if the limit set of a GDMS is not porous, then it is not porous almost everywhere. We also revisit porosity for finite graph directed Markov systems, and we provide checkable criteria which guarantee that limit sets have holes of relative size at every scale in a prescribed direction.

We then narrow our focus to systems associated to complex continued fractions with arbitrary alphabet and we provide a novel characterisation of porosity for their limit sets. Moreover, we introduce the notions of upper density and upper box dimension for subsets of Gaussian integers and we explore their connections to porosity. As applications we show that limit sets of complex continued fractions system whose alphabet is co-finite, or even a co-finite subset of the Gaussian primes, are not porous almost everywhere, while they are uniformly upper porous and mean porous almost everywhere.

We finally turn our attention to complex dynamics and we delve into porosity for Julia sets of meromorphic functions. We show that if the Julia set of a tame meromorphic function is not the whole complex plane then it is porous at a dense set of its points and it is almost everywhere mean porous with respect to natural ergodic measures. On the other hand, if the Julia set is not porous then it is not porous almost everywhere. In particular, if the function is elliptic we show that its Julia set is not porous at a dense set of its points.

Generalising previous results on classical braid groups by Artin and Lin, we determine the values of m, n ∈ $\mathbb N$ for which there exists a surjection between the n- and m-string braid groups of an orientable surface without boundary. This result is essentially based on specific properties of their lower central series, and the proof is completely combinatorial. We provide similar but partial results in the case of orientable surfaces with boundary components and of non-orientable surfaces without boundary. We give also several results about the classification of different representations of surface braid groups in symmetric groups.

Two spheres with centers p and q and signed radii r and s are said to be in contact if |p–q|2=(r–s)2. Using Lie’s line-sphere correspondence, we show that if F is a field in which –1 is not a square, then there is an isomorphism between the set of spheres in F3 and the set of lines in a suitably constructed Heisenberg group that is embedded in (F[i])3; under this isomorphism, contact between spheres translates to incidences between lines.

In the past decade there has been significant progress in understanding the incidence geometry of lines in three space. The contact-incidence isomorphism allows us to translate statements about the incidence geometry of lines into statements about the contact geometry of spheres. This leads to new bounds for Erdős’ repeated distances problem in F3, and improved bounds for the number of point-sphere incidences in three dimensions. These new bounds are sharp for certain ranges of parameters.

We prove Turán-type theorems for two related Ramsey problems raised by Bollobás and by Fox and Sudakov. First, for t ≥ 3, we show that any two-colouring of the complete graph on n vertices that is δ-far from being monochromatic contains an unavoidable t-colouring when δ ≫ n−1/t, where an unavoidable t-colouring is any two-colouring of a clique of order 2t in which one colour forms either a clique of order t or two disjoint cliques of order t. Next, for t ≥ 3, we show that any tournament on n vertices that is δ-far from being transitive contains an unavoidable t-tournament when δ ≫ n−1/[t/2], where an unavoidable t-tournament is the blow-up of a cyclic triangle obtained by replacing each vertex of the triangle by a transitive tournament of order t. Conditional on a well-known conjecture about bipartite Turán numbers, both our results are sharp up to implied constants and hence determine the order of magnitude of the corresponding off-diagonal Ramsey numbers.

We initiate and develop a framework to handle the specialisation morphism as a filtered morphism for the perverse, and for the perverse Leray filtration, on the cohomology with constructible coefficients of varieties and morphisms parameterised by a curve. As an application, we use this framework to carry out a detailed study of filtered specialisation for the Hitchin morphisms associated with the compactification of Dolbeault moduli spaces in [de 2018].