Dehn filling Dehn twists

Abstract

AbstractLet $\Sigma _{g,p}$ be the genus–g oriented surface with p punctures, with either g > 0 or p > 3. We show that $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})/DT$ is acylindrically hyperbolic where DT is the normal subgroup of the mapping class group $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})$ generated by $K^{th}$ powers of Dehn twists about curves in $\Sigma _{g,p}$ for suitable K.Moreover, we show that in low complexity $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})/DT$ is in fact hyperbolic. In particular, for 3g − 3 + p ⩽ 2, we show that the mapping class group $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})$ is fully residually non-elementary hyperbolic and admits an affine isometric action with unbounded orbits on some $L^q$ space. Moreover, if every hyperbolic group is residually finite, then every convex-cocompact subgroup of $MCG(\Sigma _{g,p})$ is separable.The aforementioned results follow from general theorems about composite rotating families, in the sense of [13], that come from a collection of subgroups of vertex stabilizers for the action of a group G on a hyperbolic graph X. We give conditions ensuring that the graph X/N is again hyperbolic and various properties of the action of G on X persist for the action of G/N on X/N.