%0 Journal Article
%T Geometric generators for braid-like groups
%A Daniel Allcock
%A Tathagata Basak
%J Mathematics
%D 2014
%I arXiv
%X We study the problem of finding generators for the fundamental group G of a space of the following sort: one removes a family of complex hyperplanes from n dimensional complex vector space, or n dimensional complex hyperbolic space, or the Hermitian symmetric space for O(2,n), and then takes the quotient by a discrete group $P{\Gamma}$. The classical example is the braid group, but there are many similar "braid-like" groups that arise in topology and algebraic geometry. Our main result is that if $P{\Gamma}$ contains reflections in the hyperplanes nearest the basepoint, and these reflections satisfy a certain property, then G is generated by the analogues of the generators of the classical braid group. We apply this to obtain generators for G in a particular intricate example in complex hyperbolic space of dimension 13. The interest in this example comes from a conjectured relationship between this braid-like group and the monster simple group M, that gives geometric meaning to the generators and relations in the Conway-Simons presentation of $(M \times M):2$.
%U http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.2401v2