Algebraic and Geometric Topology 5 (2005),
paper no. 44, pages 1075-1109.
Discrete Morse theory and graph braid groups
Daniel Farley, Lucas Sabalka
Abstract.
If Gamma is any finite graph, then the unlabelled configuration space
of n points on Gamma, denoted UC^n(Gamma), is the space of n-element
subsets of Gamma. The braid group of Gamma on n strands is the
fundamental group of UC^n(Gamma). We apply a discrete version of Morse
theory to these UC^n(Gamma), for any n and any Gamma, 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 UC^n(Gamma) strong deformation retracts onto a CW
complex of dimension at most k, where k is the number of vertices in
Gamma of degree at least 3 (and k is thus independent of n).
Keywords.
Graph braid groups, configuration spaces, discrete Morse theory
AMS subject classification.
Primary: 20F65, 20F36.
Secondary: 57M15, 57Q05, 55R80.
E-print: arXiv:math.GR/0410539
DOI: 10.2140/agt.2005.5.1075
Submitted: 26 October 2004.
Accepted: 28 June 2005.
Published: 31 August 2005.
Notes on file formats
Daniel Farley, Lucas Sabalka
Department of Mathematics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL 61820, USA
Email: farley@math.uiuc.edu, sabalka@math.uiuc.edu
URL: www.math.uiuc.edu/~farley,
www.math.uiuc.edu/~sabalka
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