A presentation of mapping class groups in terms of Artin groups and geometric monodromy of singularities

From Wajnryb's presentation, we extract a simple presentation of the mapping class group of the genus g surface as a quotient of an Artin group by simple relations among the centers of sub-Artin groups. Topological meanings are given by using deformation of simple singularities. Received: 22 January 1998 / in final form: 16 February 1999