Maximal index automorphisms of free groups with no attracting fixed points on the boundary are Dehn twists.

Martino, Armando (2001) Maximal index automorphisms of free groups with no attracting fixed points on the boundary are Dehn twists. Algebraic & Geometric Topology, 2, 897-919. (doi:10.2140/agt.2002.2.897).

Record type: Article

Abstract

In this paper we define a quantity called the rank of an outer automorphism of a free group which is the same as the index introduced in [D. Gaboriau, A. Jaeger, G. Levitt and M. Lustig, 'An index for counting fixed points for automorphisms of free groups', Duke Math. J. 93 (1998) 425-452] without the count of fixed points on the boundary. We proceed to analyze outer automorphisms of maximal rank and obtain results analogous to those in [D.J. Collins and E. Turner, 'An automorphism of a free group of finite rank with maximal rank fixed point subgroup fixes a primitive element', J. Pure and Applied Algebra 88 (1993) 43-49]. We also deduce that all such outer automorphisms can be represented by Dehn twists, thus proving the converse to a result in [M.M. Cohen and M. Lustig, 'The conjugacy problem for Dehn twist automorphisms of free groups', Comment Math. Helv. 74 (1999) 179-200], and indicate a solution to the conjugacy problem when such automorphisms are given in terms of images of a basis, thus providing a moderate extension to the main theorem of Cohen and Lustig by somewhat different methods.

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