Some remarks about the faithfulness of the Burau representation of Artin--Tits groups

Abstract

We discuss the extension of the faithfulness question for the Burau representation of braid groups to the case of Artin--Tits groups. We prove that the Burau representation is not faithful in affine type $\tilde{A_3}$, and not faithful over several finite rings in type $D_4$, using an algorithmic approach based on categorical methods that generalize Bigelow's curve strategy outside of type $A$.