Commutators, Lefschetz fibrations and the signatures of surface bundles

Endo H., Korkmaz M., Kotschick D., Ozbagci B., Stipsicz A.

TOPOLOGY, vol.41, no.5, pp.961-977, 2002 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 41 Issue: 5
  • Publication Date: 2002
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/s0040-9383(01)00011-8
  • Journal Name: TOPOLOGY
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.961-977
  • Keywords: surface bundles, Lefschetz fibrations, mapping class groups, HOMOLOGY
  • Middle East Technical University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

We construct examples of Lefschetz fibrations with prescribed singular fibers. By taking differences of pairs of such fibrations with the same singular fibers, we obtain new examples of surface bundles over surfaces with nonzero signature. From these we derive new upper bounds for the minimal genus of a surface representing a given element in the second homology of a mapping class group. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.