Braid groups and Burnside groups

Abstract

There exists an exceptional quotient of braid groups ${\text{Br}}_4\twoheadrightarrow {\text{Br}}_3$ that is related to many interesting constructions in algebra, topology, and geometry. This quotient map also descends to a quotient of "truncated" braid groups ${\text{Br}}_4(d)\twoheadrightarrow {\text{Br}}_3(d)$, which have an added torsion relation on their half twist generators. In this article, we find a presentation for the kernel of this truncated quotient map that takes the form of what we deem a "primitive" Burnside group. We give a few finiteness results on these primitive Burnside groups. Our methods are purely group theoretic, but we comment on an interpretation involving Lefschetz fibrations at the end.

arXiv comment10 pages, 2 figures