Automorphisms of braid groups on orientable surfaces

Abstract

In this paper we compute the automorphism groups $\operatorname{Aut}(\mathbf{P}_n(\Sigma))$ and $\operatorname{Aut}(\mathbf{B}_n(\Sigma))$ of braid groups $\mathbf{P}_n(\Sigma)$ and $\mathbf{B}_n(\Sigma)$ on every orientable surface $\Sigma$, which are isomorphic to group extensions of the extended mapping class group $\mathcal{M}^*_n(\Sigma)$ by the transvection subgroup except for a few cases. We also prove that $\mathbf{P}_n(\Sigma)$ is always a characteristic subgroup of $\mathbf{B}_n(\Sigma)$ unless $\Sigma$ is a twice-punctured sphere and $n=2$.