On the homology of big mapping class groups

Abstract We prove that the mapping class group of the one‐holed Cantor tree surface is acyclic. This in turn determines the homology of the mapping class group of the once‐punctured Cantor tree surface (i.e. the plane minus a Cantor set), in particular answering a recent question of Calegari and Chen. We in fact prove these results for a general class of infinite‐type surfaces called binary tree surfaces. To prove our results we use two main ingredients: one is a modification of an argument of Mather related to the notion of dissipated groups ; the other is a general homological stability result for mapping class groups of infinite‐type surfaces.