Minimal generating and normally generating sets for the braid and mapping class groups of \mathbb{D }^{2}, \mathbb S ^{2} and \mathbb{R P^2}

We consider the (pure) braid groups $B_{n}(M)$ and $P_{n}(M)$ , where $M$ is the $2$ -sphere $\mathbb S ^{2}$ or the real projective plane $\mathbb R P^2$ . We determine the minimal cardinality of (normal) generating sets $X$ of these groups, first when there is no restriction on $X$ , and secondly when $X$ consists of elements of finite order. This improves on results of Berrick and Matthey in the case of $\mathbb S ^{2}$ , and extends them in the case of $\mathbb R P^2$ . We begin by recalling the situation for the Artin braid groups ( $M=\mathbb{D }^{2}$ ). As applications of our results, we answer the corresponding questions for the associated mapping class groups, and we show that for $M=\mathbb S ^{2}$ or $\mathbb R P^2$ , the induced action of $B_n(M)$ on $H_3(\widetilde{F_n(M)};\mathbb{Z })$ is trivial, $F_{n}(M)$ being the $n^\mathrm{th}$ configuration space of $M$ .