Point-pushing in 3-manifolds

Abstract

We study the Birman exact sequence for compact 3-manifolds.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure. v2: Incorrect Lemma 6.21 replaced. Corollary 7.4 (now 7.5) strengthened. Other small changes in exposition. An alternative, more algebraic, proof of Theorem 7.2 (with less exposition) is given in arXiv:1404.368