ON HOMOLOGY OF VIRTUAL BRAIDS AND BURAU REPRESENTATION

Abstract

Virtual knots arise in the study of Gauss diagrams and Vassiliev invariants of usual knots. The group of virtual braids on n strings VBn and its Burau representation to GLnℤ[t,t-1] also can be considered. The homological properties of the series of groups VBn and its Burau representation are studied. The following splitting of infinite loop spaces is proved for the plus-construction of the classifying space of the virtual braid group on the infinite number of strings: [Formula: see text] where Y is an infinite loop space. Connections with K*ℤ are discussed.