A theory of orbit braids

This paper upbuilds the theoretical framework of orbit braids in $M\times I$ by making use of the orbit configuration space $F_G(M,n)$, which enriches the theory of ordinary braids, where $M$ is a connected topological manifold of dimension at least 2 with an effective action of a finite group $G$ and the action of $G$ on $I$ is trivial. Main points of our work include as follows. We introduce the orbit braid group $\mathcal{B}_n^{orb}(M,G)$, and show that it is isomorphic to a group with an additional endowed operation (called the extended fundamental group of $F_G(M,n)$), formed by the homotopy classes of some paths (not necessarily closed paths) in $F_G(M,n)$, which is an essential extension for fundamental groups. The orbit braid group $\mathcal{B}_n^{orb}(M,G)$ is large enough to contain the fundamental group of $F_G(M,n)$ and other various braid groups as its subgroups. Around the central position of $\mathcal{B}_n^{orb}(M,G)$, we obtain five short exact sequences weaved in a commutative diagram. We also analyze the essential relations among various braid groups associated to those configuration spaces $F_G(M,n), F(M/G,n)$, and $F(M,n)$. We finally consider how to give the presentations of orbit braid groups in terms of orbit braids as generators. We carry out our work by choosing $M=\mathbb{C}$ with typical actions of $\mathbb{Z}_p$ and $(\mathbb{Z}_2)^2$. We obtain the presentations of the corresponding orbit braid groups, from which we see that the generalized braid group $Br(B_n)$ actually agrees with an orbit braid group and $Br(D_n)$ is a subgroup of another orbit braid group. In addition, the notion of extended fundamental groups is also defined in a general way in the category of topology and some characteristics extracted from the discussions of orbit braids are given.