Asymptotically rigid mapping class groups I: Finiteness properties of braided Thompsons and Houghtons groups

This article is dedicated to the study of asymptotically rigid mapping class groups of infinitely-punctured surfaces obtained by thickening planar trees. Such groups include the braided Ptolemy-Thompson groups $T^sharp,T^ast$ introduced by Funar and Kapoudjian, and the braided Houghton groups $mathrm{br}H_n$ introduced by Degenhardt. We present an elementary construction of a contractible cube complex, on which these groups act with cube-stabilisers isomorphic to finite extensions of braid groups. As an application, we prove Funar-Kapoudjians and Degenhardts conjectures by showing that $T^sharp,T^ast$ are of type $F_infty$ and that $mathrm{br}H_n$ is of type $F_{n-1}$ but not of type $F_n$.