An infinite-type surface $Sigma$ is of type $mathcal{S}$ if it has an isolated puncture $p$ and admits shift maps. This includes all infinite-type surfaces with an isolated puncture outside of two sporadic classes. Given such a surface, we construct
an infinite family of intrinsically infinite-type mapping classes that act loxodromically on the relative arc graph $mathcal{A}(Sigma, p)$. J. Bavard produced such an element for the plane minus a Cantor set, and our result gives the first examples of such mapping classes for all other surfaces of type $mathcal{S}$. The elements we construct are the composition of three shift maps on $Sigma$, and we give an alternate characterization of these elements as a composition of a pseudo-Anosov on a finite-type subsurface of $Sigma$ and a standard shift map. We then explicitly find their limit points on the boundary of $mathcal{A}(Sigma,p)$ and their limiting geodesic laminations. Finally, we show that these infinite-type elements can be used to prove that Map$(Sigma,p)$ has an infinite-dimensional space of quasimorphisms.
In this paper, we prove a combination theorem for indicable subgroups of infinite-type (or big) mapping class groups. Importantly, all subgroups from the combination theorem, as well as those from the other results of the paper, can be constructed so
that they do not lie in the closure of the compactly supported mapping class group and do not lie in the isometry group for any hyperbolic metric on the relevant infinite-type surface. Along the way, we prove an embedding theorem for indicable subgroups of mapping class groups, a corollary of which gives embeddings of pure big mapping class groups into other big mapping class groups that are not induced by embeddings of the underlying surfaces. We also give new constructions of free groups, wreath products with $mathbb Z$, and Baumslag-Solitar groups in big mapping class groups that can be used as an input for the combination theorem. One application of our combination theorem is a new construction of right-angled Artin groups in big mapping class groups.
Recent papers of the authors have completely described the hyperbolic actions of several families of classically studied solvable groups. A key tool for these investigations is the machinery of confining subsets of Caprace, Cornulier, Monod, and Tess
era, which applies, in particular, to solvable groups with virtually cyclic abelianizations. In this paper, we extend this machinery and give a correspondence between the hyperbolic actions of certain solvable groups with higher rank abelianizations and confining subsets of these more general groups. We then apply this extension to give a complete description of the hyperbolic actions of a family of groups related to Baumslag-Solitar groups.
We abstract the notion of an A/QI triple from a number of examples in geometric group theory. Such a triple (G,X,H) consists of a group G acting on a Gromov hyperbolic space X, acylindrically along a finitely generated subgroup H which is quasi-isome
trically embedded by the action. Examples include strongly quasi-convex subgroups of relatively hyperbolic groups, convex cocompact subgroups of mapping class groups, many known convex cocompact subgroups of Out(Fn), and groups generated by powers of independent loxodromic WPD elements of a group acting on a Gromov hyperbolic space. We initiate the study of intersection and combination properties of A/QI triples. Under the additional hypothesis that G is finitely generated, we use a method of Sisto to show that H is stable. We apply theorems of Kapovich--Rafi and Dowdall--Taylor to analyze the Gromov boundary of an associated cone-off. We close with some examples and questions.
The MIP Timing Detector will provide additional timing capabilities for detection of minimum ionizing particles (MIPs) at CMS during the High Luminosity LHC era, improving event reconstruction and pileup rejection. The central portion of the detector
, the Barrel Timing Layer (BTL), will be instrumented with LYSO:Ce crystals and Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs) providing a time resolution of about 30 ps at the beginning of operation, and degrading to 50-60 ps at the end of the detector lifetime as a result of radiation damage. In this work, we present the results obtained using a 120 GeV proton beam at the Fermilab Test Beam Facility to measure the time resolution of unirradiated sensors. A proof-of-concept of the sensor layout proposed for the barrel region of the MTD, consisting of elongated crystal bars with dimensions of about 3 x 3 x 57 mm$^3$ and with double-ended SiPM readout, is demonstrated. This design provides a robust time measurement independent of the impact point of the MIP along the crystal bar. We tested LYSO:Ce bars of different thickness (2, 3, 4 mm) with a geometry close to the reference design and coupled to SiPMs manufactured by Hamamatsu and Fondazione Bruno Kessler. The various aspects influencing the timing performance such as the crystal thickness, properties of the SiPMs (e.g. photon detection efficiency), and impact angle of the MIP are studied. A time resolution of about 28 ps is measured for MIPs crossing a 3 mm thick crystal bar, corresponding to an MPV energy deposition of 2.6 MeV, and of 22 ps for the 4.2 MeV MPV energy deposition expected in the BTL, matching the detector performance target for unirradiated devices.
We report on gravitational wave discoveries from compact binary coalescences detected by Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo in the first half of the third observing run (O3a) between 1 April 2019 15:00 UTC and 1 October 2019 15:00. By imposing a false-
alarm-rate threshold of two per year in each of the four search pipelines that constitute our search, we present 39 candidate gravitational wave events. At this threshold, we expect a contamination fraction of less than 10%. Of these, 26 candidate events were reported previously in near real-time through GCN Notices and Circulars; 13 are reported here for the first time. The catalog contains events whose sources are black hole binary mergers up to a redshift of ~0.8, as well as events whose components could not be unambiguously identified as black holes or neutron stars. For the latter group, we are unable to determine the nature based on estimates of the component masses and spins from gravitational wave data alone. The range of candidate events which are unambiguously identified as binary black holes (both objects $geq 3~M_odot$) is increased compared to GWTC-1, with total masses from $sim 14~M_odot$ for GW190924_021846 to $sim 150~M_odot$ for GW190521. For the first time, this catalog includes binary systems with significantly asymmetric mass ratios, which had not been observed in data taken before April 2019. We also find that 11 of the 39 events detected since April 2019 have positive effective inspiral spins under our default prior (at 90% credibility), while none exhibit negative effective inspiral spin. Given the increased sensitivity of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo, the detection of 39 candidate events in ~26 weeks of data (~1.5 per week) is consistent with GWTC-1.
On 2019 April 25, the LIGO Livingston detector observed a compact binary coalescence with signal-to-noise ratio 12.9. The Virgo detector was also taking data that did not contribute to detection due to a low signal-to-noise ratio, but were used for s
ubsequent parameter estimation. The 90% credible intervals for the component masses range from 1.12 to 2.52 $M_{odot}$ (1.45 to 1.88 $M_{odot}$ if we restrict the dimensionless component spin magnitudes to be smaller than 0.05). These mass parameters are consistent with the individual binary components being neutron stars. However, both the source-frame chirp mass $1.44^{+0.02}_{-0.02} M_{odot}$ and the total mass $3.4^{+0.3}_{-0.1},M_{odot}$ of this system are significantly larger than those of any other known binary neutron star system. The possibility that one or both binary components of the system are black holes cannot be ruled out from gravitational-wave data. We discuss possible origins of the system based on its inconsistency with the known Galactic binary neutron star population. Under the assumption that the signal was produced by a binary neutron star coalescence, the local rate of neutron star mergers is updated to $250-2810 text{Gpc}^{-3}text{yr}^{-1}$.
The set of equivalence classes of cobounded actions of a group on different hyperbolic metric spaces carries a natural partial order. The resulting poset thus gives rise to a notion of the best hyperbolic action of a group as the largest element of t
his poset, if such an element exists. We call such an action a largest hyperbolic action. While hyperbolic groups admit largest hyperbolic actions, we give evidence in this paper that this phenomenon is rare for non-hyperbolic groups. In particular, we prove that many families of groups of geometric origin do not have largest hyperbolic actions, including for instance many 3-manifold groups and most mapping class groups. Our proofs use the quasi-trees of metric spaces of Bestvina--Bromberg--Fujiwara, among other tools. In addition, we give a complete characterization of the poset of hyperbolic actions of Anosov mapping torus groups, and we show that mapping class groups of closed surfaces of genus at least two have hyperbolic actions which are comparable only to the trivial action.
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration have cataloged eleven confidently detected gravitational-wave events during the first two observing runs of the advanced detector era. All eleven events were consistent with being from wel
l-modeled mergers between compact stellar-mass objects: black holes or neutron stars. The data around the time of each of these events have been made publicly available through the gravitational-wave open science center. The entirety of the gravitational-wave strain data from the first and second observing runs have also now been made publicly available. There is considerable interest among the broad scientific community in understanding the data and methods used in the analyses. In this paper, we provide an overview of the detector noise properties and the data analysis techniques used to detect gravitational-wave signals and infer the source properties. We describe some of the checks that are performed to validate the analyses and results from the observations of gravitational-wave events. We also address concerns that have been raised about various properties of LIGO-Virgo detector noise and the correctness of our analyses as applied to the resulting data.
This paper presents the gravitational-wave measurement of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) using the detections from the first and second observing runs of the Advanced LIGO and Virgo detector network. The presence of the transient electromagnetic counter
part of the binary neutron star GW170817 led to the first standard-siren measurement of $H_0$. Here we additionally use binary black hole detections in conjunction with galaxy catalogs and report a joint measurement. Our updated measurement is $H_0 = 69^{+16}_{-8}$ km/s/Mpc (68.3% of the highest density posterior interval with a flat-in-log prior) which is an improvement by a factor of 1.04 (about 4%) over the GW170817-only value of $69^{+17}_{-8}$ km/s/Mpc. A significant additional contribution currently comes from GW170814, a loud and well-localized detection from a part of the sky thoroughly covered by the Dark Energy Survey. With numerous detections anticipated over the upcoming years, an exhaustive understanding of other systematic effects are also going to become increasingly important. These results establish the path to cosmology using gravitational-wave observations with and without transient electromagnetic counterparts.
