The Schreier graphs of Thompson's group F with respect to the stabilizer of 1/2 and generators x_0 and x_1, and of its unitary representation in L_2([0,1]) induced by the standard action on the interval [0,1] are explicitly described. The coamenability of the stabilizers of any finite set of dyadic rational numbers is established. The induced subgraph of the right Cayley graph of the positive monoid of F containing all the vertices of the form x_nv, where n>=0 and v is any word over the alphabet {x_0, x_1}, is constructed. It is proved that the latter graph is non-amenable.
We determine exactly which graph products, also known as Right Angled Artin Groups, embed into Richard Thompson's group $V$. It was shown by Bleak and Salazar-Diaz that $\mathbb{Z}^2 * \mathbb{Z}$ was an obstruction. We show that this is the only obstruction. This is shown by proving a graph theory result giving an alternate description of simple graphs without an appropriate induced subgraph.
The goal is to extend a non-standard amenability test for groups, based on random walks and superharmonic functions, to group actions on sets, and to apply it to Thompson's group F using certain properties of extensive amenability. While no conclusive answer regarding the amenability of F is given, the approach is helpful in developing a new potentially useful criterion and testing it on a significant subclass of superharmonic functions.
The definition of graph automatic groups by Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov and its extension to C-graph automatic by Murray Elder and the first author raise the question of whether Thompson's group F is graph automatic. We define a language of normal forms based on the combinatorial "caret types" which arise when elements of F are considered as pairs of finite rooted binary trees, which we show to be accepted by a finite state machine with 2 counters, and forms the basis of a 3-counter graph automatic structure for the group.
We prove that the Poisson boundary of a simple random walk on the Schreier graph of action of $F$ on $\mathbb{D}$, where $\mathbb{D}$ is the set of dyadic numbers in $[0, 1]$, is non-trivial. This gives a new proof of the result of Kaimanovich: Thompson's group $F$ doesn't have Liouville property. In addition, we compute growth function of the Schreier graph of the action of $F$ on $\mathbb{D}$.
Schreier graphs of the actions of Thompson's group $F$ on the orbits of all points of the unit interval and of the Cantor set with respect to the standard generating set $\{x_0,x_1\}$ are explicitly constructed. The closure of the space of pointed Schreier graphs of the action of $F$ on the orbits of dyadic rational numbers and corresponding Schreier dynamical system are described. In particular, we answer the question of Grigorchuk on the Cantor-Bendixson rank of the underlying space of the Schreier dynamical system in the context of $F$. As applications we prove that the pointed Schreier gra…
A slight modification of the definition of the Thompson-Higman groups G_k1 and F_k1 leads to inverse monoids that map onto G_k1 (respectively F_k1), and that have interesting properties: they are finitely generated, and residually finite. These inverse monoids are closely related to the suffix expansion of G_k1 (respectively F_k1).
In this paper, we prove that if two finite groups G and H have isomorphic Burnside rings, then G and H are the same order type groups, and give an example to show that the Burnside rings of the same order type groups are not necessarily isomorphic. This result is related to the Thompson Problem which was raised in 1987.
In this paper, we construct embeddings of right-angled Artin groups into higher dimensional Thompson groups. In particular, we embed every right-angled Artin groups into n-dimensional Thompson group, where n is the number of complementary edges in the defining graph.
It is not known whether Thompson's group F is automatic. With the recent extensions of the notion of an automatic group to graph automatic by Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov and then to C-graph automatic by the authors, a compelling question is whether F is graph automatic or C-graph automatic for an appropriate language class C. The extended definitions allow the use of a symbol alphabet for the normal form language, replacing the dependence on generating set. In this paper we construct a 1-counter graph automatic structure for F based on the standard infinite normal form for group e…
We study some properties of the Cayley graph of the R.Thompson's group F in generators $x_0$, $x_1$. We show that the density of this graph, that is, the least upper bound of the average vertex degree of its finite subgraphs is at least 3. It is known that a 2-generated group is not amenable if and only if the density of the corresponding Cayley graph is strictly less than 4. It is well known this is also equivalent to the existence of a doubling function on the Cayley graph. This means there exists a mapping from the set of vertices into itself such that for some constant $K>0$, each vertex m…
This paper demonstrates the uniformly finite homology developed by Block and Weinberger and its relationship to amenable spaces via applications to the Cayley graph of Thompson's Group F. In particular, a certain class of subgraph of F is shown to be non-amenable. This shows that if F is amenable, these subsets (which include every finitely generated submonoid of the positive monoid of F) must necessarily have measure zero.
We construct a family of groups from suitable higher rank graphs which are analogues of the finite symmetric groups. We introduce homological invariants showing that many of our groups are, for example, not isomorphic to $nV$, when $n \geq 2$.
We prove that Richard Thompson's group F is not minimally almost convex with respect to the two standard generators. This improves upon a recent result of S. Cleary and J. Taback. We make use of the forest diagrams for elements of F introduced by J. Belk and K. Brown. These diagrams seem particularly well-suited for understanding the Cayley graph for the two standard generators.
We give a unified solution to the conjugacy problem for Thompson's groups F, T, and V. The solution uses strand diagrams, which are similar in spirit to braids and generalize tree-pair diagrams for elements of Thompson's groups. Strand diagrams are closely related to piecewise-linear functions for elements of Thompson's groups, and we use this correspondence to investigate the dynamics of elements of F. Though many of the results in this paper are known, our approach is new, and it yields elegant proofs of several old results.
By the density of a finite graph we mean its average vertex degree. For an $m$-generated group, the density of its Cayley graph in a given set of generators, is the supremum of densities taken over all its finite subgraphs. It is known that a group with $m$ generators is amenable iff the density of the corresponding Cayley graph equals $2m$. A famous problem on the amenability of R.\,Thompson's group $F$ is still open. What is known due to the result by Belk and Brown, is that the density of its Cayley graph in the standard set of group generators $\{x_0,x_1\}$, is at least $3.5$. This estimat…
In previous work, joint with Bux, Fluch, Marschler and Witzel, we proved that the braided Thompson groups are of type $\textrm{F}_\infty$. The proof utilized certain contractible cube complexes, which in this paper we prove are CAT(0). We then use this fact to compute the geometric invariants $Σ^m(F_{\textrm{br}})$ of the pure braided Thompson group $F_{\textrm{br}}$. Only the first invariant $Σ^1(F_{\textrm{br}})$ was previously known. A consequence of our computation is that as soon as a subgroup of $F_{\textrm{br}}$ containing the commutator subgroup $[F_{\textrm{br}},F_{\textrm{br}}]$ is f…
We study some combinatorial properties of the word metric of Thompson's group F in the standard two generator finite presentation. We explore connections between the tree pair diagram representing an element w of F, its normal form in the infinite presentation, its word length, and minimal length representatives of it. We estimate word length in terms of the number and type of carets in the tree pair diagram and show sharpness of those estimates. In addition we explore some properties of the Cayley graph of F with respect to the two generator finite presentation. Namely, we exhibit the form of…
We obtain a characterisation of confined subgroups of Thompson's group $F$. As a result, we deduce that orbital graph of a point under action of $F$ has uniformly subexponential growth if and only if this point is fixed by the commutator subgroup. This allows us to prove non-embeddability of $F$ into wobbling groups of graphs with uniformly subexponential growth.
We introduce forest diagrams to represent elements of Thompson's group F. These diagrams relate to a certain action of F on the real line in the same way that tree diagrams relate to the standard action of F on the unit interval. Using forest diagrams, we give a conceptually simple length formula for elements of F with respect to the {x_0,x_1} generating set, and we discuss the construction of minimum-length words for positive elements. Finally, we use forest diagrams and the length formula to examine the structure of the Cayley graph of F.
We show how to construct a family of groups with simple commutator subgroups from aperiodic 1-vertex, finitely aligned higher rank graphs (which are, in fact, a class of cancellative monoids). Inverse semigroups form the intermediary between these cancellative monoids and the family of groups we are interested in. These groups can naturally be viewed as higher-dimensional generalizations of the classical Thompson groups since the finite direct products of free monoids are examples of the appropriate 1-vertex higher rank graphs.
We show that a large class of languages in the standard finite generating set X = {$x_0, x_1, x_0^{-1}, x_1^{-1}$} cannot be part of an automatic structure for Thompson's Group F. These languages are ones that accept at least one representative of each element of F of word length that is within a fixed constant of a geodesic representative of the element. To accomplish this, we look at a specific element of F and trace two different paths through the Cayley graph to that element. We show that staying within the length restrictions along these two paths would force that element to have contradi…
In the quest in constructing conformal field theories (CFT) Jones has discovered a beautiful and deep connection between CFT, Richard Thompson's groups and knot theory. This led to a powerful functorial framework for constructing actions of particular groups arising from categories such as Thompson's groups and braid groups. In particular, given a group and two of its endomorphisms one can construct a semidirect product where the largest Thompson's group $V$ is acting. These semidirect products have remarkable diagrammatic descriptions which were previously used to provide new examples of grou…
We prove that the word problem of the Brin-Thompson group nV over a finite generating set is coNP-complete for every n \ge 2. It is known that the groups nV are an infinite family of infinite, finitely presented, simple groups. We also prove that the word problem of the Thompson group V over a certain infinite set of generators, related to boolean circuits, is coNP-complete.
Let $Λ$ be a row-finite and source-free higher rank graph with finitely many vertices. In this paper, we define the Higman-Thompson like group $\Lht$ of the graph C*-algebra $\mathcal{O}_Λ$ to be a special subgroup of the unitary group in $Ø_Λ$. It is shown that $\Lht$ is closely related to the topological full groups of the groupoid associated with $Λ$. Some properties of $\Lht$ are also investigated. We show that its commutator group $\DLht$ is simple and that $\DLht$ has only one nontrivial uniformly recurrent subgroup if $Λ$ is aperiodic and strongly connected. Furthermore, if $Λ$ is singl…
We provide two ways to show that the R. Thompson group $F$ has maximal subgroups of infinite index which do not fix any number in the unit interval under the natural action of $F$ on $(0,1)$, thus solving a problem by D. Savchuk. The first way employs Jones' subgroup of the R. Thompson group $F$ and leads to an explicit finitely generated example. The second way employs directed 2-complexes and 2-dimensional analogs of Stallings' core graphs, and gives many implicit examples. We also show that $F$ has a decreasing sequence of finitely generated subgroups $F>H_1>H_2>...$ such that $\cap H_i=\{1…
In a recent paper Jones introduced a correspondence between elements of the Thompson group $F$ and certain graphs/links. It follows from his work that several polynomial invariants of links, such as the Kauffman bracket, can be reinterpreted as coefficients of certain unitary representations of $F$. We give a somewhat different and elementary proof of this fact for the Kauffman bracket evaluated at certain roots of unity by means of a statistical mechanics model interpretation. Moreover, by similar methods we show that, for some particular specializations of the variables, other familiar link …
We consider the subgroup lpG_{k,1} of length preserving elements of the Thompson-Higman group G_{k,1} and we show that all elements of G_{k,1} have a unique lpG_{k,1}.F_{k,1} factorization. This applies to the Thompson-Higman group T_{k,1} as well. We show that lpG_{k,1} is a ``diagonal'' direct limit of finite symmetric groups, and that lpT_{k,1} is a k^infinity Pr"ufer group. We find an infinite generating set of lpG_{k,1} which is related to reversible boolean circuits. We further investigate connections between the Thompson-Higman groups, circuits, and complexity. We show that elements of …
A remarkable result of Thompson states that a finite group is soluble if and only if its two-generated subgroups are soluble. This result has been generalized in numerous ways, and it is in the core of a wide area of research in the theory of groups, aiming for global properties of groups from local properties of two-generated (or more generally, $n$-generated) subgroups. We contribute an extension of Thompson's theorem from the perspective of factorized groups. More precisely, we study finite groups $G = AB$ with subgroups $A,\ B$ such that $\langle a, b\rangle$ is soluble for all $a \in A$ a…
We investigate the connection between Tamari lattices and the Thompson group F, summarized in the fact that F is a group of fractions for a certain monoid F+sym whose Cayley graph includes all Tamari lattices. Under this correspondence, the Tamari lattice operations are the counterparts of the least common multiple and greatest common divisor operations in F+sym. As an application, we show that, for every n, there exists a length l chain in the nth Tamari lattice whose endpoints are at distance at most 12l/n.
Jones introduced unitary representations of Thompson group $F$ starting from a given subfactor planar algebra, and all unoriented links arise as matrix coefficients of these representations. Moreover, all oriented links arise as matrix coefficients of a subgroup $\vec{F}$ which is the stabilizer of a certain vector. Later Golan and Sapir determined the subgroup $\vec{F}$ and showed many interesting properties. In this paper, we investigate into a large class of groups which arises as subgroups of Thompson group $F$ and reveal the relation between the skein theory of the subfactor planar algebr…
We introduce forest diagrams and strand diagrams for elements of Thompson's group F. A forest diagram is a pair of infinite, bounded binary forests together with an order-preserving bijection of the leaves. Using forest diagrams, we derive a simple length formula for elements of F, and we discuss applications to the geometry of the Cayley graph, including a new upper bound on the isoperimetric constant (a.k.a. Cheeger constant) of F. Strand diagrams are similar to tree diagrams, but they can be concatenated like braids. Motivated by the fact that configuration spaces are classifying spaces for…
In this paper, we continue our study of the class of diagram groups. Simply speaking, a diagram is a labelled plane graph bounded by a pair of paths (the top path and the bottom path). To multiply two diagrams, one simply identifies the top path of one diagram with the bottom path of the other diagram, and removes pairs of "reducible" cells. Each diagram group is determined by an alphabet $X$, containing all possible labels of edges, a set of relations ${\cal R}=\{u_i=v_i\mid i=1,2,... \}$, containing all possible labels of cells, and a word $w$ over $X$ -- the label of the top and bottom path…
We prove that seesaw words exist in Thompson's Group F(N) for N=2,3,4,... with respect to the standard finite generating set X. A seesaw word w with swing k has only geodesic representatives ending in g^k or g^{-k} (for given g\in X) and at least one geodesic representative of each type. The existence of seesaw words with arbitrarily large swing guarantees that F(N) is neither synchronously combable nor has a regular language of geodesics. Additionally, we prove that dead ends (or k--pockets) exist in F(N) with respect to X and all have depth 2. A dead end w is a word for which no geodesic pat…
We provide equivalent conditions for Liouville property of actions of groups. As an application, we show that there is a Liouville measure for the action of the Thompson group $F$ on dyadic rationals. This result should be compared with a recent result of Kaimanovich, where he shows that the action of the Thompson group F on dyadic rationals is not Liouville for all finitely supported measures. As another application we show that there is a Liouville measure for lamplighter actions. This gives more examples of non-amenable Liouville actions.
In this second article, we continue to study classes of groups constructed from a functorial method due to Vaughan Jones. A key observation of the author shows that these groups have remarkable diagrammatic properties that can be used to deduce their properties. Given any group and two of its endomorphisms, we construct a semidirect product. In our first article dedicated to this construction, we classify up to isomorphism all these semidirect products when one of the endomorphisms is trivial and described their automorphism group. In this article we focus on the case where both endomorphisms …
Let $1 \le r < n$ be integers. We give a proof that the group $\mathop{\mathrm{Aut}}({X_{n}^{\mathbb{N}}, σ_{n}})$ of automorphisms of the one-sided shift on $n$ letters embeds naturally as a subgroup $\mathcal{H}_{n}$ of the outer automorphism group $\mathop{\mathrm{Out}}({G_{n,r}})$ of the Higman-Thompson group $G_{n,r}$. From this, we can represent the elements of $\mathop{\mathrm{Aut}}({X_{n}^{\mathbb{N}}, σ_{n}})$ by finite state non-initial transducers admitting a very strong synchronizing condition. Let $H \in \mathcal{H}_{n}$ and write $|H|$ for the number of states of the minimal tran…
We prove that random walks on Thompson's group $F$ driven by strictly non-degenerate finitely supported probability measures $μ$ have a non-trivial Poisson boundary. The proof consists in an explicit construction of two different non-trivial $μ$-boundaries. Both of them are defined in terms of the Schreier graph $Γ$ on the dyadic-rational orbit of the canonical action of $F$ on the unit interval (actually, we consider a natural embedding of $F$ into the group $PLF({\mathbb R})$ of piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the real line, and realize $Γ$ on the dyadic-rational orbit in ${\mathbb R}$). …
In this paper, we introduce the concept of the independence graph of a directed 2-complex. We show that the class of diagram groups is closed under graph products over independence graphs of rooted 2-trees. This allows us to show that a diagram group containing all countable diagram groups is a semi-direct product of a partially commutative group and R. Thompson's group $F$. As a result, we prove that all diagram groups are totally orderable.
