We investigate the structure of subdirect products of groups, particularly their finiteness properties. We pay special attention to the subdirect products of free groups, surface groups and HNN extensions. We prove that a finitely presented subdirect product of free and surface groups virtually contains a term of the lower central series of the direct product or else fails to intersect one of the direct summands. This leads to a characterization of the finitely presented subgroups of the direct product of 3 free or surface groups, and to a solution to the conjugacy problem for arbitrary finitely presented subgroups of direct products of surface groups. We obtain a formula for the first homology of a subdirect product of two free groups and use it to show there is no algorithm to determine the first homology of a finitely generated subgroup.
We analyse the subgroup structure of direct products of groups. Earlier work on this topic has revealed that higher finiteness properties play a crucial role in determining which groups appear as subgroups of direct products of free groups or limit groups. Here, we seek to relate the finiteness properties of a subgroup to the way it is embedded in the ambient product. To this end we formulate a conjecture on finiteness properties of fibre products of groups. We present different approaches to this conjecture, proving a general result on finite generation of homology groups of fibre products an…
We show Lie algebra versions of some results on homological finiteness properties of subdirect products of groups, including a version of the 1-2-3 Theorem.
There has been substantial investigation in recent years of subdirect products of limit groups and their finite presentability and homological finiteness properties. To contrast the results obtained for limit groups, Baumslag, Bridson, Holt and Miller investigated subdirect products (fibre products) of finitely presented metabelian groups. They showed that, in contrast to the case for limit groups, such subdirect products could have diverse behaviour with respect to finite presentability. We show that, in a sense that can be made precise, `most' subdirect products of a finite set of finitely p…
Extending Goursat's Lemma we investigate the structure of subdirect products of 3-factor direct products. We give several example constructions and then provide a structure theorem showing that every such group is essentially obtained by a combination of the constructions. The central observation in this structure theorem is that the dependencies among the group elements in the subdirect product that involve all three factors are of Abelian nature. In the spirit of Goursat's Lemma, for two special cases, we derive correspondence theorems between data obtained from the subgroup lattices of the …
In this thesis we investigate the Dehn functions of two different classes of groups: subdirect products, in particular subdirect products of limit groups; and Bestvina-Brady groups. Let D = Γ_1 \times ... \times Γ_n be a direct product of n \geq 3 finitely presented groups and let H be a subgroup of D. Suppose that each Γ_i contains a finite index subgroup Γ_i' \leq Γ_i such that the commutator subgroup [D', D'] of D' = Γ_1' \times ... \times Γ_n' is contained in H. Suppose furthermore that, for each i, the subgroup Γ_i H has finite index in D. We prove that H is finitely presented and satisfi…
We construct classes of Kähler groups that do not have finite classifying spaces and are not commensurable to subdirect products of surface groups. Each of these groups is the fundamental group of the generic fibre of a holomorphic map from a product of Kodaira fibrations onto an elliptic curve.
We introduce the concept of propagating equations and focus on the case of associativity propagating in varieties of loops. An equation $\varepsilon$ propagates in an algebra $X$ if $\varepsilon(\overrightarrow y)$ holds whenever $\varepsilon(\overrightarrow x)$ holds and the elements of $\overrightarrow y$ are contained in the subalgebra of $X$ generated by $\overrightarrow x$. If $\varepsilon$ propagates in $X$ then it propagates in all subalgebras and products of $X$ but not necessarily in all homomorphic images of $X$. If $\mathcal V$ is a variety, the propagating core $\mathcal V_{[\varep…
We study conditions under which subdirect products of various types of algebraic structures are finitely generated or finitely presented. In the case of two factors, we prove general results for arbitrary congruence permutable varieties, which generalise previously known results for groups, and which apply to modules, rings, $K$-algebras and loops. For instance, if $C$ is a fiber product of $A$ and $B$ over a common quotient $D$, and if $A$, $B$ and $D$ are finitely presented, then $C$ is finitely generated. For subdirect products of more than two factors we establish a general connection with…
In this paper we study conjugacy separability of subdirect products of two free (or hyperbolic) groups. We establish necessary and sufficient criteria and apply them to fibre products to produce a finitely presented group $G_1$ in which all finite index subgroups are conjugacy separable, but which has an index $2$ overgroup that is not conjugacy separable. Conversely, we construct a finitely presented group $G_2$ which has a non-conjugacy separable subgroup of index $2$ such that every finite index normal overgroup of $G_2$ is conjugacy separable. The normality of the overgroup is essential in…
The direct product $\mathbb{N}\times\mathbb{N}$ of two free monogenic semigroups contains uncountably many pairwise non-isomorphic subdirect products. Furthermore, the following hold for $\mathbb{N}\times S$, where $S$ is a finite semigroup. It contains only countably many pairwise non-isomorphic subsemigroups if and only if $S$ is a union of groups. And it contains only countably many pairwise non-isomorphic subdirect products if and only if every element of $S$ has a relative left- or right identity element.
We present a construction that produces infinite classes of Kähler groups that arise as fundamental groups of fibres of maps to higher dimensional tori. Following the work of Delzant and Gromov, there is great interest in knowing which subgroups of direct products of surface groups are Kähler. We apply our construction to obtain new classes of irreducible, coabelian Kähler subgroups of direct products of $r$ surface groups. These cover the full range of possible finiteness properties of irreducible subgroups of direct products of $r$ surface groups: For any $r\geq 3$ and $2\leq k \leq r-1$, ou…
University of Cape Town(开普敦大学);Universitá degli Studi di Camerino(卡梅里诺大学);University of the Western Cape(西开普大学);Università degli Studi Niccolò Cusano(尼古拉·库萨诺大学)
We define and study a pro-$p$ version of Sidki's weak commutativity construction. This is the pro-$p$ group $\mathfrak{X}_p(G)$ generated by two copies $G$ and $G^ψ$ of a pro-$p$ group, subject to the defining relators $[g,g^ψ]$ for all $g \in G$. We show for instance that if $G$ is finitely presented or analytic pro-$p$, then $\mathfrak{X}_p(G)$ has the same property. Furthermore we study properties of the non-abelian tensor product and the pro-$p$ version of Rocco's construction $ν(H)$. We also study finiteness properties of subdirect products of pro-$p$ groups. In particular we prove a pro-…
The purpose of this paper is two fold. First we introduce the box-tensor product of two groups as a generalization of the nonabelian tensor product of groups. We extend various results for nonabelian tensor products to the box-tensor product such as the finiteness of the product when each factor is finite. This would give yet another proof of Ellis's theorem on the finiteness of the nonabelian tensor product of groups when each factor is finite. Secondly, using the methods developed in proving the finiteness of the box-tensor product, we prove the finiteness of Inassaridze's tensor product und…
A notion of \emph{graph-wreath product} is introduced. We obtain sufficient conditions for these products to satisfy the topologically inspired finiteness condition type $\operatorname{F}_n$. Under various additional assumptions we show that these conditions are necessary. Our results generalise results of Cornulier about wreath products in case $n=2$. Graph-wreath products include classical permutational wreath products and semidirect products of right-angled Artin groups by groups of automorphisms amongst others.
We establish a general criterion for the finite presentability of subdirect products of groups and use this to characterize finitely presented residually free groups. We prove that, for all $n\in\mathbb{N}$, a residually free group is of type ${\rm{FP}}_n$ if and only if it is of type ${\rm{F}}_n$. New families of subdirect products of free groups are constructed, including the first examples of finitely presented subgroups that are neither ${\rm{FP}}_\infty$ nor of Stallings-Bieri type. The template for these examples leads to a more constructive characterization of finitely presented residua…
By using finiteness related result of non-abelian tensor product we prove finiteness conditions for the homotopy groups $π_n(X)$ in terms of the number of tensors. In particular, we establish a quantitative version of the classical Blakers-Massey triad connectivity theorem. Moreover, we study others finiteness conditions and equivalence properties that arise from the non-abelian tensor square. In the end, we give applications to homotopy pushout, especially in the case of Eilenberg-MacLane spaces.
We present a new proof, which is independent of the finite simple group classification and applies also to infinite groups, that quasiprimitive permutation groups of simple diagonal type cannot be embedded into wreath products in product action. The proof uses several deep results that concern factorisations of direct products involving subdirect subgroups. We find that such factorisations are controlled by the existence of uniform automorphisms.
Let $H \leq S_n$ be an intransitive group with orbits $Ω_1, Ω_2, \ldots ,Ω_k$. Then certainly $H$ is a subdirect product of the direct product of its projections on each orbit, $H|_{Ω_1} \times H|_{Ω_2} \times \ldots \times H|_{Ω_k}$. Here we provide a polynomial time algorithm for computing the finest partition $P$ of the $H$-orbits such that $H = \prod_{c \in P} H|_c$ and demonstrate its usefulness in some applications.
We explore an elementary construction that produces finitely presented groups with diverse homological finiteness properties -- the {\em binary subgroups}, $B(Σ,μ)<G_1\times\dots\times G_m$. These full subdirect products require strikingly few generators. If each $G_i$ is finitely presented, $B(Σ,μ)$ is finitely presented. When the $G_i$ are non-abelian limit groups (e.g. free or surface groups), the $B(Σ,μ)$ provide new examples of finitely presented, residually-free groups that do not have finite classifying spaces and are not of Stallings-Bieri type. These examples settle a question of Mina…
Let $G$, $H$ be groups. We denote by $η(G,H)$ a certain extension of the non-abelian tensor product $G \otimes H$ by $G \times H$. We prove that if $G$ and $H$ are groups that act compatibly on each other and such that the set of all tensors $T_{\otimes}(G,H)=\{g\otimes h \, : \, g \in G, \, h\in H\}$ is finite, then the non-abelian tensor product $G \otimes H$ is finite. In the opposite direction we examine certain finiteness conditions of $G$ in terms of similar conditions for the tensor square $G \otimes G$.
We construct bundles $E_k(\A,\F) \to M$ over the complement $M$ of a complex hyperplane arrangement \A, depending on an integer $k \geq 1$ and a set $\F=\{f_1, \ldots, f_μ\}$ of continuous functions $f_i \colon M \to \C$ whose differences are nonzero on $M$, generalizing the configuration space bundles arising in the Lawrence-Krammer-Bigelow representation of the pure braid group. We display such families \F\ for rank two arrangements, reflection arrangements of types $A_\ell$, $B_\ell$, $D_\ell$, $F_4$, and for arrangements supporting multinet structures with three classes, with the resulting…
In this paper we investigate finiteness properties of totally disconnected locally compact groups for general commutative rings $R$, in particular for $R = \mathbb{Z}$ and $R= \mathbb{Q}$. We show these properties satisfy many analogous results to the case of discrete groups, and we provide analogues of the famous Bieri's and Brown's criteria for finiteness properties and deduce that both $FP_n$-properties and $F_n$-properties are quasi-isometric invariant. Moreover, we introduce graph-wreath products in the category of totally disconnected locally compact groups and discuss their finiteness p…
We show that there is no uniform polynomial isoperimetric function for finitely presented subgroups of direct products of free groups, by producing a sequence of subgroups $G_r\leq F_2^{(1)} \times \dots \times F_2^{(r)}$ of direct products of 2-generated free groups with Dehn functions bounded below by $n^{r}$. The groups $G_r$ are obtained from the examples of non-coabelian subdirect products of free groups constructed by Bridson, Howie, Miller and Short. As a consequence we obtain that residually free groups do not admit a uniform polynomial isoperimetric function.
We establish three independent results on groups acting on trees. The first implies that a compactly generated locally compact group which acts continuously on a locally finite tree with nilpotent local action and no global fixed point is virtually indicable; that is to say, it has a finite index subgroup which surjects onto $\mathbf{Z}$. The second ensures that irreducible cocompact lattices in a product of non-discrete locally compact groups such that one of the factors acts vertex-transitively on a tree with a nilpotent local action cannot be residually finite. This is derived from a genera…
We prove that every {finitely generated residually finite}-by-sofic group satisfies Kaplansky's direct and stable finiteness conjectures with respect to all noetherian rings. We use this result to provide countably many new examples of finitely presented non-LEA groups, for which soficity is still undecided, satisfying these two conjectures. Deligne's famous example of a non residually finite group is among our examples, along with the families of amalgamated free products SL_n(Z[1/p])*_{F_r}SL_n(Z[1/p]) and HNN extensions SL_n(Z[1/p])*_{F_r}, where p>2 is a prime, n>2 and F_r is a free group …
Full residual finiteness growth of a finitely generated group $G$ measures how efficiently word metric $n$-balls of $G$ inject into finite quotients of $G$. We initiate a study of this growth over the class of nilpotent groups. When the last term of the lower central series of $G$ has finite index in the center of $G$ we show that the growth is precisely $n^b$, where $b$ is the product of the nilpotency class and dimension of $G$. In the general case, we give a method for finding an upper bound of the form $n^b$ where $b$ is a natural number determined by what we call a terraced filtration of …
We consider the preservation of properties of being finitely generated, being finitely presented and being residually finite under direct products in the context of different types of algebraic structures. The structures considered include Mal'cev algebras (including groups, rings and other classical algebras, as well as loops), idempotent algebras (including lattices), semigroups, and algebras in congruence modular varieties. We aim to identify as broad classes as possible in which the 'expected' preservation results (AxB satisfies property P if and only if A and B satisfy P) hold, and to exh…
We extend Matui's notion of almost finiteness to general etale groupoids and show that the reduced groupoid C*-algebras of minimal almost finite groupoids have stable rank one. The proof follows a new strategy, which can be regarded as a local version of the large subalgebra argument. The following three are the main consequences of our result. (i) For any group of (local) subexponential growth and for any its minimal action admitting a totally disconnected free factor, the crossed product has stable rank one. (ii) Any countable amenable group admits a minimal action on the Cantor set all whos…
We consider the outer automorphism group Out(A_Gamma) of the right-angled Artin group A_Gamma of a random graph Gamma on n vertices in the Erdos--Renyi model. We show that the functions (log(n)+log(log(n)))/n and 1-(log(n)+log(log(n)))/n bound the range of edge probability functions for which Out(A_Gamma) is finite: if the probability of an edge in Gamma is strictly between these functions as n grows, then asymptotically Out(A_Gamma) is almost surely finite, and if the edge probability is strictly outside of both of these functions, then asymptotically Out(A_Gamma) is almost surely infinite. T…
We investigate four finiteness conditions related to residual finiteness: complete separability, strong subsemigroup separability, weak subsemigroup separability and monogenic subsemigroup separability. For each of these properties we examine under which conditions the property is preserved under direct products. We also consider if any of the properties are inherited by the factors in a direct product. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for finite semigroups to preserve the properties of strong subsemigroup separability and monogenic subsemigroup separability in a direct product.
We show that many $2$-dimensional Artin groups are residually finite. This includes $3$-generator Artin groups with labels $\geq 4$ except for $(2m+1, 4,4)$ for any $m\geq 2$. As a first step towards residual finiteness we show that these Artin groups, and many more, split as free products with amalgamation or HNN extensions of finite rank free groups. Among others, this holds for all large type Artin groups with defining graph admitting an orientation, where each simple cycle is directed.
We examine the question of which finitely generated groups act properly on a finite product of simplicial trees, considering both arbitrary trees and where all trees are locally finite. In the second case we present evidence in favour of hyperbolic surface groups having such an action. However we also present evidence that many RAAGs do not admit such an action and we give an example of a virtually special group which does not act properly preserving factors on any finite product of locally finite trees, even though it does so on a product of three trees without the local finiteness condition.
We investigate connections between various rigidity and softness properties for discrete quantum groups. After introducing a notion of residual finiteness, we show that it implies the Kirchberg factorization property for the discrete quantum group in question. We also prove the analogue of Kirchberg's theorem, to the effect that conversely, the factorization property and property (T) jointly imply residual finiteness. We also apply these results to certain classes of discrete quantum groups obtained by means of bicrossed product constructions and study the preservation of the properties (facto…
For each natural number $d$ we construct a $3$-generated group $H_d$, which is a subdirect product of free groups, such that the cohomological dimension of $H_d$ is $d$. Given a group $F$ and a normal subgroup $N \lhd F$ we prove that any right angled Artin group containing the special HNN-extension of $F$ with respect to $N$ must also contain $F/N$. We apply this to construct, for every $d \in \mathbb{N}$, a $4$-generated group $G_d$, embeddable into a right angled Artin group, such that the cohomological dimension of $G_d$ is $2$ but the cohomological dimension of any right angled Artin grou…
A subgroup $G$ of a product $\prod\limits_{i\in\mathbb{N}}G_i$ is \emph{rectangular} if there are subgroups $H_i$ of $G_i$ such that $G=\prod\limits_{i\in\mathbb{N}}H_i$. We say that $G$ is \emph{weakly rectangular} if there are finite subsets $F_i\subseteq \mathbb{N}$ and subgroups $H_i$ of $\bigoplus\limits_{j\in F_i} G_j$ that satisfy $G=\prod\limits_{i\in\mathbb{N}}H_i$. %We say that $G$ is a \emph{subdirect product} of the family $\{G_i\}_{i\in I}$ if $G$ is weakly rectangular and %$G\cap\bigoplus\limits_{i\in I} G_i=\bigoplus\limits_{i\in\mathbb{N}}H_i$. In this paper we discuss when a c…
We construct Kähler groups with arbitrary finiteness properties by mapping products of closed Riemann surfaces holomorphically onto an elliptic curve: for each $r\geq 3$, we obtain large classes of Kähler groups that have classifying spaces with finite $(r-1)$-skeleton but do not have classifying spaces with finitely many $r$-cells. We describe invariants which distinguish many of these groups. Our construction is inspired by examples of Dimca, Papadima and Suciu.