We prove the meridional rank conjecture for twisted links and arborescent links associated to bipartite trees with even weights. These links are substantial generalizations of pretzels and two-bridge links, respectively. Lower bounds on meridional rank are obtained via Coxeter quotients of the groups of link complements. Matching upper bounds on bridge number are found using the Wirtinger numbers of link diagrams, a combinatorial tool developed by the authors.
Coxeter groups are a special class of groups generated by involutions. They play important roles in the various areas of mathematics. This survey particularly focuses on how one use Coxeter groups to construct interesting examples of discrete subgroups of Lie group.
Given a Coxeter system (W,S), there is an associated CW-complex, Sigma, on which W acts properly and cocompactly. We prove that when the nerve L of (W,S) is a flag triangulation of the 3-sphere, then the reduced $ell^2$-homology of Sigma vanishes in all but the middle dimension.
Let $n$ be a positive integer. M. K. Dabkowski and J. H. Przytycki introduced the $n$th Burnside group of links which is preserved by $n$-moves, and proved that for any odd prime $p$ there exist links which are not equivalent to trivial links up to $p$-moves by using their $p$th Burnside groups. This gives counterexamples for the Montesinos-Nakanishi $3$-move conjecture. In general, it is hard to distinguish $p$th Burnside groups of a given link and a trivial link. We give a necessary condition for which $p$th Burnside groups are isomorphic to those of trivial links. The necessary condition gives us an efficient way to distinguish $p$th Burnside groups of a given link and a trivial link. As an application, we show that there exist links, each of which is not equivalent to a trivial link up to $p$-moves for any odd prime $p$.
We give formulas for the second and third integral homology of an arbitrary finitely generated Coxeter group, solely in terms of the corresponding Coxeter diagram. The first of these calculations refines a theorem of Howlett, while the second is entirely new and is the first explicit formula for the third homology of an arbitrary Coxeter group.
We use probabilistic methods to prove that many Coxeter groups are incoherent. In particular, this holds for Coxeter groups of uniform exponent > 2 with sufficiently many generators.