#### Volume 7, issue 4 (2007)

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The center of some braid groups and the Farrell cohomology of certain pure mapping class groups

### Yu Qing Chen, Henry H Glover and Craig A Jensen

Algebraic & Geometric Topology 7 (2007) 1987–2006
 arXiv: 0712.3334
##### Abstract

In this paper we first show that many braid groups of low genus surfaces have their centers as direct factors. We then give a description of centralizers and normalizers of prime order elements in pure mapping class groups of surfaces with spherical quotients using automorphism groups of fundamental groups of the quotient surfaces. As an application, we use these to show that the $p$–primary part of the Farrell cohomology groups of certain mapping class groups are elementary abelian groups. At the end we compute the $p$–primary part of the Farrell cohomology of a few pure mapping class groups.

##### Keywords
braid group, mapping class group, normalizer, centralizer, cohomology of groups
##### Mathematical Subject Classification 2000
Primary: 20F36, 20J06
##### Publication
Revised: 16 September 2007
Accepted: 5 October 2007
Published: 26 December 2007
##### Authors
 Yu Qing Chen Department of Mathematics and Statistics Wright State University Dayton OH 45435-0001 Henry H Glover Department of Mathematics Ohio State University Columbus OH 43210-1174 Craig A Jensen Department of Mathematics University of New Orleans New Orleans LA 70148