FINITE LINEAR QUOTIENTS OF B3 OF LOW DIMENSION

We study the problem of deciding whether or not the image of an irreducible representation of the braid group B-3 of degree <= 5 has finite image if we are only given the eigenvalues of a generator. We provide a partial algorithm that determines when the images are finite or infinite in all but finitely many cases, and use these results to study examples coming from quantum groups. Our technique uses two classification theorems and the computational group theory package GAP.