Volume 5, issue 3 (2005)

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Discrete Morse theory and graph braid groups

Daniel Farley and Lucas Sabalka

Algebraic & Geometric Topology 5 (2005) 1075–1109

arXiv: math.GR/0410539

Abstract

If Γ is any finite graph, then the unlabelled configuration space of n points on Γ, denoted UCnΓ, is the space of n–element subsets of Γ. The braid group of Γ on n strands is the fundamental group of UCnΓ.

We apply a discrete version of Morse theory to these UCnΓ, for any n and any Γ, and provide a clear description of the critical cells in every case. As a result, we can calculate a presentation for the braid group of any tree, for any number of strands. We also give a simple proof of a theorem due to Ghrist: the space UCnΓ strong deformation retracts onto a CW complex of dimension at most k, where k is the number of vertices in Γ of degree at least 3 (and k is thus independent of n).

Keywords
graph braid groups, configuration spaces, discrete Morse theory
Mathematical Subject Classification 2000
Primary: 20F65, 20F36
Secondary: 57M15, 57Q05, 55R80
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Publication
Received: 26 October 2004
Accepted: 28 June 2005
Published: 31 August 2005
Authors
Daniel Farley
Department of Mathematics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign IL 61820
USA
http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~farley/
Lucas Sabalka
Department of Mathematics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign IL 61820
USA
http://www.math.uiuc.edu/~sabalka/