Study of certain isotopy classes of a finite collection of immersed circles without triple or higher intersections on closed oriented surfaces can be thought of as a planar analogue of virtual knot theory where the genus zero case corresponds to clas
sical knot theory. Alexander and Markov theorems for the genus zero case are known where the role of groups is played by twin groups, a class of right angled Coxeter groups with only far commutativity relations. The purpose of this paper is to prove Alexander and Markov theorems for higher genus case where the role of groups is played by a new class of groups called virtual twin groups which extends twin groups in a natural way.
The twin group $T_n$ is a right angled Coxeter group generated by $n- 1$ involutions and having only far commutativity relations. These groups can be thought of as planar analogues of Artin braid groups. In this note, we study some properties of twin
groups whose analogues are well-known for Artin braid groups. We give an algorithm for two twins to be equivalent under individual Markov moves. Further, we show that twin groups $T_n$ have $R_infty$-property and are not co-Hopfian for $n ge 3$.
The twin group $T_n$ is a right angled Coxeter group generated by $n-1$ involutions and the pure twin group $PT_n$ is the kernel of the natural surjection from $T_n$ onto the symmetric group on $n$ symbols. In this paper, we investigate some structur
al aspects of these groups. We derive a formula for the number of conjugacy classes of involutions in $T_n$, which quite interestingly, is related to the well-known Fibonacci sequence. We also derive a recursive formula for the number of $z$-classes of involutions in $T_n$. We give a new proof of the structure of $Aut(T_n)$ for $n ge 3$, and show that $T_n$ is isomorphic to a subgroup of $Aut(PT_n)$ for $n geq 4$. Finally, we construct a representation of $T_n$ to $Aut(F_n)$ for $n ge 2$.
