Every tame, prime and alternating knot is equivalent to a tame, prime and alternating knot in regular position, with a common projection. In this work, we show that the Dehn presentation of the knot group of a tame, prime, alternating knot, with a regular and common projection has a finite and complete rewriting system. Although there are rules in the rewriting system with left-hand side a generator and which increase the length of the words we show that the system is terminating.
We introduce two new types of Dehn functions of group presentations which seem more suitable (than the standard Dehn function) for infinite group presentations and prove the fundamental equivalence between the solvability of the word problem for a group presentation defined by a decidable set of defining words and the property of being computable for one of the newly introduced functions (this equivalence fails for the standard Dehn function). Elaborating on this equivalence and making use of this function, we obtain a characterization of finitely generated groups for which the word problem ca…
We construct examples of finitely generated decidable group presentations that satisfy certain combinations of solvability for the word problem, solvability for the bounded word problem, and computablity for the Dehn function. We prove that no finitely generated decidable presentations exist satisfying the combinations for which we do not provide examples. The presentations we construct are also minimal. These constructions answer an open question asked by R.I. Grigorchuk and S.V. Ivanov. Our approach uses machinery developed by Birget, Ol'shanskii, Rips, and Sapir for constructing finite grou…
Presentations of groups by rewriting systems (that is, by monoid presentations), have been fruitfully studied by encoding the rewriting system in a $2$--complex -- the Squier complex -- whose fundamental groupoid then describes the derivation of consequences of the rewrite rules. We describe a reduced form of the Squier complex, investigate the structure of its fundamental groupoid, and show that key properties of the presentation are still encoded in the reduced form.
We describe a formalism, using groupoids, for the study of rewriting for presentations of inverse monoids, that is based on the Squier complex construction for monoid presentations. We introduce the class of pseudoregular groupoids, an example of which now arises as the fundamental groupoid of our version of the Squier complex. A further key ingredient is the factorisation of the presentation map from a free inverse monoid as the composition of an idempotent pure map and an idempotent separating map. The relation module of a presentation is then defined as the abelianised kernel of this idempo…
We study the Dehn function of connected Lie groups. We show that this function is always exponential or polynomially bounded, according to the geometry of weights and of the 2-cohomology of their Lie algebras. Our work, which also addresses algebraic groups over local fields, uses and extends Abels' theory of multiamalgams of graded Lie algebras, in order to provide workable presentations of these groups.
This paper shows that a finitely presented monoid with linear Dehn function need not have a regular cross-section, strengthening the previously-known result that such a monoid need not be presented by a finite complete string rewriting system, and contrasting the fact that finitely presented groups with linear Dehn function always have regular cross-sections.
We refine Cohen and Lustig's description of centralisers of Dehn twists of free groups. We show that the centraliser of a Dehn twist of a free group has a subgroup of finite index that has a finite classifying space. We describe an algorithm to find a presentation of the centraliser. We use this algorithm to give an explicit presentation for the centraliser of a Nielsen automorphism in Aut(F_n). This gives restrictions to actions of Aut(F_n) on CAT(0) spaces.
In this survey we show how well known results about the Word Problem for finite group presentations can be generalized to the Word Problem and other decision problems for non-necessarily finite monoid and group presentations. This is done by introducing functions playing the same role of the Dehn function for the given decision problem and by finding the Tietze transformations that leave this function invariant. This survey presents some original ideas and points of view.
While Dehn functions, D(n), of finitely presented groups are very well studied in the literature, mean Dehn functions are much less considered. M. Gromov introduced the notion of mean Dehn function of a group, $D_{mean}(n)$, suggesting that in many cases it should grow much more slowly than the Dehn function itself. Using only elementary counting methods, this paper presents some computations pointing into this direction. Particularizing them to the case of any finite presentation of a finitely generated abelian group (for which it is well known that $D(n)\sim n^2$ except in the 1-dimensional …
Viewing Dehn's algorithm as a rewriting system, we generalise to allow an alphabet containing letters which do not necessarily represent group elements. This extends the class of groups for which the algorithm solves the word problem to include nilpotent groups, many relatively hyperbolic groups including geometrically finite groups and fundamental groups of certain geometrically decomposable manifolds. The class has several nice closure properties. We also show that if a group has an infinite subgroup and one of exponential growth, and they commute, then it does not admit such an algorithm. W…
We introduce a topological property for finitely generated groups called stackable that implies the existence of an inductive procedure for constructing van Kampen diagrams with respect to a particular finite presentation. We also define algorithmically stackable groups, for which this procedure is an algorithm. This property gives a common model for algorithms arising from both rewriting systems and almost convexity for groups.
It is proved that, given a (von Neumann) regular semigroup with finitely many left and right ideals, if every maximal subgroup is presentable by a finite complete rewriting system, then so is the semigroup. To achieve this, the following two results are proved: the property of being defined by a finite complete rewriting system is preserved when taking an ideal extension by a semigroup defined by a finite complete rewriting system; a completely 0-simple semigroup with finitely many left and right ideals admits a presentation by a finite complete rewriting system provided all of its maximal sub…
We give an infinite presentation for the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface. The generating set consists of all Dehn twists and all crosscap pushing maps along simple loops.
In this paper, a connection between rewriting systems and embedding of monoids in groups is found. We show that if a group with a positive presentation has a complete rewriting system $\Re$ that satisfies the condition that each rule in $\Re$ with positive left-hand side has a positive right-hand side, then the monoid presented by the subset of positive rules from $\Re$ embeds in the group. As an example, we give a simple proof that right angled Artin monoids embed in the corresponding right angled Artin groups. This is a special case of the well-known result of Paris \cite{paris} that Artin m…
We give an example of a monoid with finitely many left and right ideals, all of whose Schutzenberger groups are presentable by finite complete rewriting systems, and so each have finite derivation type, but such that the monoid itself does not have finite derivation type, and therefore does not admit a presentation by a finite complete rewriting system. The example also serves as a counterexample to several other natural questions regarding complete rewriting systems and finite derivation type. Specifically it allows us to construct two finitely generated monoids M and N with isometric Cayley …
A finite presentation for the subgroup of the mapping class group of a compact non-orientable surface generated by all Dehn twists was given by Stukow. In this paper, we give an infinite presentation for this group, mainly using the presentation given by Stukow and Birman exact sequences on mapping class groups of non-orientable surfaces.
A conjecture of Dehornoy claims that, given a presentation of an Artin-Tits group, every word that represents the identity can be transformed into the trivial word using the braid relations, together with certain rules (between pairs of words that are not both positive) that can be derived directly from the braid relations, as well as free reduction, but without introducing trivial factors $ss^{-1} $ or $s^{-1} s$. This conjecture is known to be true for Artin-Tits groups of spherical type or of FC type. We prove the conjecture for Artin--Tits groups of sufficiently large type.
In this paper we study rewriting systems for groups and monoids, focusing on situations where finite convergent systems may be difficult to find or do not exist. We consider systems which have no length increasing rules and are confluent and then systems in which the length reducing rules lead to geodesics. Combining these properties we arrive at our main object of study which we call geodesically perfect rewriting systems. We show that these are well-behaved and convenient to use, and give several examples of classes of groups for which they can be constructed from natural presentations. We d…
We give several new positive finite presentations for the pure braid group that are easy to remember and simple in form. All of our presentations involve a metric on the punctured disc so that the punctures are arranged "convexly", which is why we describe them as geometric presentaitons. Motivated by a presentation for the full braid group that we call the "rotation presentation", we introduce presentations for the pure braid group that we call the "twist presentation" and the "swing presentation". From the point of view of mapping class groups, the swing presentation can be interpreted as st…
Motivated by problems in topology, we explore the complexity of balanced group presentations. We obtain large lower bounds on the complexity of Andrews-Curtis trivialisations, beginning in rank 4. Our results are based on a new understanding of how Dehn functions of groups behave under certain kinds of push-outs. We consider groups $S$ with presentations of deficiency 1 satisfying certain technical conditions and construct balanced group presentations $¶_w$ indexed by words $w$ in the generators of $S$. If $w=1$ in $S$ then $¶_w$ is Andrews-Curtis trivialisable and the number of Andrews-Curtis…
We present a metric condition ${\LARGEτ}'$ which describes the geometry of classical small cancellation groups and applies also to other known classes of groups such as two-dimensional Artin groups. We prove that presentations satisfying condition ${\LARGEτ}'$ are diagrammatically reducible in the sense of Sieradski and Gersten. In particular we deduce that the standard presentation of an Artin group is aspherical if and only if it is diagrammatically reducible. We show that, under some extra hypotheses, ${\LARGEτ}'$-groups have quadratic Dehn functions and solvable conjugacy problem. In the s…
We introduce a combinatorial property for finitely generated groups called stackable that implies the existence of an inductive procedure for constructing van Kampen diagrams with respect to a canonical finite presentation. We also define algorithmically stackable groups, for which this procedure is an effective algorithm. This property gives a common model for algorithms arising from both rewriting systems and almost convexity for groups. We also introduce a new pair of asymptotic invariants that are filling inequalities refining the notions of intrinsic and extrinsic diameter inequalities fo…
An ideal triangulation $\mathcal{T}$ of a hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ with one cusp is non-peripheral if no edge of $\mathcal{T}$ is homotopic to a curve in the boundary torus of $M$. For such a triangulation, the gluing and completeness equations can be solved to recover the hyperbolic structure of $M$. A planar projection of a knot gives four ideal cell decompositions of its complement (minus 2 balls), two of which are ideal triangulations that use 4 (resp., 5) ideal tetrahedra per crossing. Our main result is that these ideal triangulations are non-peripheral for all planar, reduced, alternat…
