In this paper we study the generic, i.e., typical, behavior of finitely generated subgroups of hyperbolic groups and also the generic behavior of the word problem for amenable groups. We show that a random set of elements of a nonelementary word hyperbolic group is very likely to be a set of free generators for a nicely embedded free subgroup. We also exhibit some finitely presented amenable groups for which the restriction of the word problem is unsolvable on every sufficiently large subset of words.
Given a prime $p$, we construct a permutation group containing at least $p^{p-2}$ non-conjugated regular elementary abelian subgroups of order $p^3$. This gives the first example of a permutation group with exponentially many non-conjugated regular subgroups.
We give two examples of a finitely generated subgroup of a free group and a subset, closed in the profinite topology of a free group, such that their product is not closed in the profinite topology of a free group.
In this paper we show that the membership problems for finitely generated submonoids and for rational subsets are recursively equivalent for groups with two or more ends.
Let G be a group and let k be a cardinal. A subset A of G is called left (right) k-large if there exists a subset F of G such that |F| < { and G = FA (G = AF). We say that A is k-large if A is left and right k-large. It is known that every infinite group G can be partitioned into countably many \aleph_0-large subsets. On the other hand, every amenable (in particular Abelian) group G cannot be partitioned into > \aleph_0 \aleph_0-large subsets. We prove that every infinite group G of cardinality k can be partitioned into k left- \aleph_1-large subsets and every free group F_k in the infinite al…
We present examples of closed subsets of a free group such that their product is not closed in the profinite topology. We discuss how to characterize a subset of a free group which is closed in the profinite topology and its product with any finitely generated subgroup of a free group is also closed in the profinite topology.
Let $G$ be a group and $G_0 \subseteq G$ be a subset. A sequence over $G_0$ means a finite sequence of terms from $G_0$, where the order of elements is disregarded and the repetition of elements is allowed. A product-one sequence is a sequence whose elements can be ordered such that their product equals the identity element of the group. We study algebraic and arithmetic properties of monoids of product-one sequences over finite subsets of $G$ and over the whole group $G$, with a special emphasis on infinite dihedral groups.
Let G be a group and N be the class of nilpotent groups. A subset A of G is said to be nonnilpotent if for any two distinct elements a and b in A, ha, bi 62 N. If, for any other nonnilpotent subset B in G, |A| ? |B|, then A is said to be a maximal nonnilpotent subset and the cardinality of this subset (if it exists) is denoted by !(NG). In this paper, among other results, we obtain !(NSuz(q)) and !(NPGL(2,q)), where Suz(q) is the Suzuki simple group over the field with q elements and PGL(2, q) is the projective general linear group of degree 2 over the finite field of size q, respectively.
If $G$ is a finite group and $x\in G$ then the set of all elements of $G$ having the same order as $x$ is called {\em an order subset of $G$ determined by $x$} (see [2]). We say that $G$ is a {\em group with perfect order subsets} or briefly, $G$ is a {\em $POS$-group} if the number of elements in each order subset of $G$ is a divisor of $|G|$. In this paper we prove that for any $n\geq 4$, the symmetric group $S_n$ is not $POS$-group. This gives the positive answer to one of two questions rising from Conjecture 5.2 in [3].
We use language theory to study the rational subset problem for groups and monoids. We show that the decidability of this problem is preserved under graph of groups constructions with finite edge groups. In particular, it passes through free products amalgamated over finite subgroups and HNN extensions with finite associated subgroups. We provide a simple proof of a result of Grunschlag showing that the decidability of this problem is a virtual property. We prove further that the problem is decidable for a direct product of a group G with a monoid M if and only if membership is uniformly decid…
Let G be a group. A subset X of G is a set of pairwise non-commuting elements if xy is not equal to yx for any two distinct elements x and y in X. If |X|>=|Y| for any other set of pairwise non-commuting elements Y in G, then X is said to be a maximal subset of pairwise non-commuting elements. In this paper we determine the cardinality of a maximal subset of pairwise non-commuting elements for finite minimal non-abelian groups.
A finite group G is said to be a POS-group if the number of elements of every order occurring in G divides |G|. We answer two questions by Finch and Jones by providing an infinite family of nonabelian POS-groups with orders not divisible by 3.
In a group $G$, a weak Sierpiński subset is a subset $E$ such that for some $g,h\in G$ and $a\neq b\in E$, we have $gE=E\smallsetminus \{a\}$ and $hE=E\smallsetminus \{b\}$. In this setting, we study the subgroup generated by $g$ and $h$, and show that it has a special presentation, namely of the form $G_k=\langle g,h\mid (h^{-1}g)^k\rangle$ unless it is free over $(g,h)$. In addition, in such groups $G_k$, we characterize all weak Sierpiński subsets.
Given an infinite group G, we consider the finitely additive measure defined on finite unions of cosets of finite index subgroups. We show that this shares many properties with the size of subsets of a finite group, for instance we can obtain equivalent results on Ruzsa distance and product free sets. In particular if G has infinitely many finite index subgroups then it has subsets S of measure arbitrarily close to 1/2 with the square of S having measure less than 1.
We present some results about quasiconvex subgroups of infinite index and their products. After that we extend the standard notion of a subgroup commensurator to an arbitrary subset of a group, and generalize some of the previously known results.
An element of a finitely generated non-Abelian free group F(X) is said to be filling if that element has positive translation length in every very small action of F(X) on an $\mathbb{R}$-tree. We give a proof that the set of filling elements of F(X) is exponentially F(X)-generic in the sense of Arzhantseva and Ol'shanskii. We also provide an algebraic sufficient condition for an element to be filling and show that there exists an exponentially F(X)-generic subset of filling elements whose membership problem is solvable in linear time.
A binary operation on any set induces a binary operation on its subsets. We explore families of subsets of a group that become a group under the induced operation and refer to such families as power groups of the given group. Our results serve to characterize some types of groups in terms of their power groups. In particular, we consider when the only power groups of a group are the factor groups of its subgroups and when that is the case up to isomorphism. We prove that the former are precisely those groups for which every element has finite order and provide examples to illustrate that the l…
We study automorphisms of the semigroup $\boldsymbol{B}_{Z\mathbb{}}^{\mathscr{F}}$ with the family $\mathscr{F}$ of inductive nonempty subsets of $ω$ and prove that the group $\mathbf{Aut}(\boldsymbol{B}_{\mathbb{Z}}^{\mathscr{F}})$ of automorphisms of the semigroup $\boldsymbol{B}_{Z\mathbb{}}^{\mathscr{F}}$ is isomorphic to the additive group integers.
A countably based profinite group can be naturally seen as a metric space with respect to a given filtration, and thus, it has a well defined Hausdorff dimension function. Barnea and Shalev found a group theoretical expression for the Hausdorff dimension of the closed subgroups of a profinite group $G$, opening, in this way, a bunch of possibilities to explore. In this paper we generalize Barnea's and Shalev's result to arbitrary closed subsets of $G$.
Let $F$ be a free non-abelian group. We show that for any group word $w$ the set $w[F]$ of all values of $w$ in $F$ is rational in $F$ if and only if $w[F] = 1$ or $w[F] = F.$ We generalize this to a wide class of free products of groups.
Let $G $ be a group of cardinality $κ>\aleph_0 $ endowed with a topology $τ$ such that $|U|=κ$ for every non-empty $U\inτ$ and $τ$ has a base of cardinality $κ$. We prove that $G$ could be factorized $G=AB$ (i.e. each $g\in G$ has unique representation $g=ab$, $a\in A$, $b\in B$) into dense subsets $A,B$, $|A|=|B|=κ$. We do not know if this statement holds for $κ= \aleph_0$ even if $G$ is a topological group.
A group $G$ is said to be factorized into subsets $A_1, A_2, \ldots, A_s\subseteq G$ if every element $g$ in $G$ can be uniquely represented as $g=g_1g_2\ldots g_s$, where $g_i\in A_i$, $i=1,2,\ldots,s$. We consider the following conjecture: for every finite group $G$ and every factorization $n=ab$ of its order, there is a factorization $G=AB$ with $|A|=a$ and $|B|=b$. We show that a minimal counterexample to this conjecture must be a nonabelian simple group and prove the conjecture for every finite group the nonabelian composition factors of which have orders less than $10\,000$.
We introduce the notion of a Bishop topological group i.e., a group X equipped with a Bishop topology of functions F such that the group operations of X are Bishop morphisms with respect to F. A closed subset in the neighborhood structure of X induced by its Bishop topology F is defined in a positive way i.e., not as the complement of an open subset in X. The corresponding closure operator, although it is not topological, in the classical sense, does not involve sequences. As countable choice (CC) is avoided, and in agreement with Richman's critique on the use of CC in constructive mathematics…
Let $G$ be a group. A subset $F \subset G$ is called irreducibly faithful if there exists an irreducible unitary representation $π$ of $G$ such that $π(x) \neq \mathrm{id}$ for all $x \in F \smallsetminus \{e\}$. Otherwise $F$ is called irreducibly unfaithful. Given a positive integer $n$, we say that $G$ has Property $P(n)$ if every subset of size $n$ is irreducibly faithful. Every group has $P(1)$, by a classical result of Gelfand and Raikov. Walter proved that every group has $P(2)$. It is easy to see that some groups do not have $P(3)$. We provide a complete description of the irreducibly …
Suppose $G$ is a finite group. The set of all centralizers of $2-$element subsets of $G$ is denoted by $2-Cent(G)$. A group $G$ is called $(2,n)-$centralizer if $|2-Cent(G)| = n$ and primitive $(2,n)-$centralizer if $|2-Cent(G)| = |2-Cent(\frac{G}{Z(G)})| = n$, where $Z(G)$ denotes the center of $G$. The aim of this paper is to present the main properties of $(2,n)-$centralizer groups among them a characterization of $(2,n)-$centralizer and primitive $(2,n)-$centralizer groups, $n \leq 9$, are given.
Let G be a finitely generated free, free abelian of arbitrary exponent, free nilpotent, or free solvable group, or a free group in the variety A_mA_n, and let A = {a_1,..., a_r} be a basis for G. We prove that, in most cases, if S is a subset of a basis for G which may be expressed as a word in A without using elements from {a_{l+1},...,a_r}, then S is a subset of a basis for the relatively free group on {a_1,...,a_l}.
A word hyperbolic group $G$ is called GFERF if every quasiconvex subgroup coincides with the intersection of finite index subgroups containing it. We show that in any such group, the product of finitely many quasiconvex subgroups is closed in the profinite topology on $G$.
We prove that an outer automorphism of the free group is exponentially growing if and only if it induces an outer automorphism of infinite order of free Burnside groups with sufficiently large odd exponent.
We show that the membership problem in a finitely generated submonoid of a graph group (also called a right-angled Artin group or a free partially commutative group) is decidable if and only if the independence graph (commutation graph) is a transitive forest. As a consequence we obtain the first example of a finitely presented group with a decidable generalized word problem that does not have a decidable membership problem for finitely generated submonoids. We also show that the rational subset membership problem is decidable for a graph group if and only if the independence graph is a transi…
A paratopological group $G$ is saturated if the inverse $U^{-1}$ of each non-empty set $U\subset G$ has non-empty interior. It is shown that a [first-countable] paratopological group $H$ is a closed subgroup of a saturated (totally bounded) [abelian] paratopological group if and only if $H$ admits a continuous bijective homomorphism onto a (totally bounded) [abelian] topological group $G$ [such that for each neighborhood $U\subset H$ of the unit $e$ there is a closed subset $F\subset G$ with $e\in h^{-1}(F)\subset U$]. As an application we construct a paratopological group whose character exce…
In this paper we will give various examples of exponentially distorted subgroups in linear groups, including some new example of subgroups of $SL_n(\mathbb{Z}[x])$ for $n \ge 3$, and show how they can be used to construct symmetric-key cryptographic platforms.
We propose a general conjecture on decompositions of finite simple groups as products of conjugates of an arbitrary subset. We prove this conjecture for bounded subsets of arbitrary finite simple groups, and for large subsets of groups of Lie type of bounded rank. Some of our arguments apply recent advances in the theory of growth in finite simple groups of Lie type, and provide a variety of new product decompositions of these groups.
Let $G$ be a nonabelian group. We say that $G$ has an abelian partition, if there exists a partition of $G$ into commuting subsets $A_1, A_2, \ldots, A_n$ of $G$, such that $|A_i|\geqslant 2$ for each $i=1, 2, \ldots, n$. This paper investigates problems relating to group with abelian partitions. Among other results, we show that every finite group is isomorphic to a subgroup of a group with an abelian partition and also isomorphic to a subgroup of a group with no abelian partition. We also find bounds for the minimum number of partitions for several families of groups which admit abelian part…
We classify the subsets of a group by their sizes, formalize the basic methods of partitions and apply them to partition a group to subsets of prescribed sizes.
In recent years there has been significant progress in the study of products of subsets of finite groups and of finite simple groups in particular. In this paper we consider which families of finite simple groups $G$ have the property that for each $ε> 0$ there exists $N > 0$ such that, if $|G| \ge N$ and $S, T$ are normal subsets of $G$ with at least $ε|G|$ elements each, then every non-trivial element of $G$ is the product of an element of $S$ and an element of $T$. We show that this holds in a strong sense for finite simple groups of Lie type of bounded rank, while it does not hold for alte…
We define the scattered subsets of a group as asymptotic counterparts of scattered subspaces of a topological space, and prove that a subset $A$ of a group $G$ is scattered if and only if $A$ contains no piecewise shifted $IP$-subsets. For an amenable group $G$ and a scattered subspace $A$ of $G$, we show that $μ(A)=0$ for each left invariant Banach measure $μ$ on $G$.
A subset $D$ of an Abelian group is $decomposable$ if $\emptyset\ne D\subset D+D$. In the paper we give partial answer to an open problem asking whether every finite decomposable subset $D$ of an Abelian group contains a non-empty subset $Z\subset D$ with $\sum Z=0$. For every $n\in\mathbb N$ we present a decomposable subset $D$ of cardinality $|D|=n$ in the cyclic group of order $2^n-1$ such that $\sum D=0$, but $\sum T\ne 0$ for any proper non-empty subset $T\subset D$. On the other hand, we prove that every decomposable subset $D\subset\mathbb R$ of cardinality $|D|\le 7$ contains a non-emp…
In this paper we discuss some of the key properties of sum-free subsets of abelian groups. Our discussion has been designed with a broader readership in mind, and is hence not overly technical. We consider answers to questions like: how many sum-free subsets are there in a given abelian group $G$? what are its sum-free subsets of maximum cardinality? what is the maximum cardinality of these sum-free subsets? what does a typical sum-free subset of $G$ looks like? among others.
Let $G$ be a group, $βG$ is the Stone-$\check{C}$ech compactification of $βG$ endowed with the structure of a right topological semigroup, $G^*=βG\setminus G$. Given any subset $A$ of $G$ and $p\in G^*$, we define the $p$-companion $\vt_p(A)=A^*\cap Gp$ of $A$, and characterize the subsets with finite and discrete ultracompanions.
We consider a group-theoretic analogue of the classic subset sum problem. In this brief note, we show that the subset sum problem is NP-complete in the first Grigorchuk group. More generally, we show NP-hardness of that problem in weakly regular branch groups, which implies NP-completeness if the group is, in addition, contracting.
In this paper we investigate the special automata over finite rank free groups and estimate asymptotic characteristics of sets they accept. We show how one can decompose an arbitrary regular subset of a finite rank free group into disjoint union of sets accepted by special automata or special monoids. These automata allow us to compute explicitly generating functions, $λ-$measures and Cesaro measure of thick monoids. Also we improve the asymptotic classification of regular subsets in free groups.
We show that for every subset X of a closed surface M^2 and every basepoint x_0, the natural homomorphism from the fundamental group to the first shape homotopy group, is injective. In particular, if X is a proper compact subset of M^2, then pi_1(X,x_0) is isomorphic to a subgroup of the limit of an inverse sequence of finitely generated free groups; it is therefore locally free, fully residually free and residually finite.
We consider a group-theoretic analogue of the classic subset sum problem. It is known that every virtually nilpotent group has polynomial time decidable subset sum problem. In this paper we use subgroup distortion to show that every polycyclic non-virtually-nilpotent group has NP-complete subset sum problem.
We systematize and analyze some results obtained in Subset Combinatorics of $G$ groups after publications the previous surveys [1-4]. The main topics: the dynamical and descriptive characterizations of subsets of a group relatively their combinatorial size, Ramsey-product subsets in connection with some general concept of recurrence in $G$-spaces, new ideals in the Boolean algebra $\mathcal{P}_{G}$ of all subsets of a group $G$ and in the Stone-$\check{C}$ech compactification $βG$ of $G$ , the combinatorial derivation.
A fixed point theorem is proved for inverse transducers, leading to an automata-theoretic proof of the fixed point subgroup of an endomorphism of a finitely generated virtually free group being finitely generated. If the endomorphism is uniformly continuous for the hyperbolic metric, it is proved that the set of regular fixed points in the hyperbolic boundary has finitely many orbits under the action of the finite fixed points. In the automorphism case, it is shown that these regular fixed points are either exponentially stable attractors or exponentially stable repellers.
Can the real line with removed zero be covered by countably many linearly (algebraically) independent subsets over the field of rationals? We use a matroid approach to show that an answer is "Yes" under the Continuum Hypothesis, and "No" under its negation.
We consider the rational subset membership problem for Baumslag-Solitar groups. These groups form a prominent class in the area of algorithmic group theory, and they were recently identified as an obstacle for understanding the rational subsets of $\text{GL}(2,\mathbb{Q})$. We show that rational subset membership for Baumslag-Solitar groups $\text{BS}(1,q)$ with $q\ge 2$ is decidable and PSPACE-complete. To this end, we introduce a word representation of the elements of $\text{BS}(1,q)$: their pointed expansion (PE), an annotated $q$-ary expansion. Seeing subsets of $\text{BS}(1,q)$ as word la…
It is shown that the knapsack problem (introduced by Myasnikov, Nikolaev, and Ushakov) is undecidable in a direct product of sufficiently many copies of the discrete Heisenberg group (which is nilpotent of class 2). Moreover, for the discrete Heisenberg group itself, the knapsack problem is decidable. Hence, decidability of the knapsack problem is not preserved under direct products. It is also shown that for every co-context-free group, the knapsack problem is decidable. For the subset sum problem (also introduced by Myasnikov, Nikolaev, and Ushakov) we show that it belongs to the class NL (n…
In this paper, we determine the descriptive complexity of subsets of the Polish space of marked groups defined by various group theoretic properties. In particular, using Grigorchuk groups, we establish that the sets of solvable groups, groups of exponential growth and groups with decidable word problem are $\mathbfΣ^0_2$-complete and that the sets of periodic groups and groups of intermediate growth are $\mathbfΠ^0_2$-complete. We also provide bounds for the descriptive complexity of simplicity, amenability, residually finiteness, Hopficity and co-Hopficity. This paper is intended to serve as…
We introduce and study the space of \emph{subset currents} on the free group $F_N$. A subset current on $F_N$ is a positive $F_N$-invariant locally finite Borel measure on the space $\mathfrak C_N$ of all closed subsets of $\partial F_N$ consisting of at least two points. While ordinary geodesic currents generalize conjugacy classes of nontrivial group elements, a subset current is a measure-theoretic generalization of the conjugacy class of a nontrivial finitely generated subgroup in $F_N$, and, more generally, in a word-hyperbolic group. The concept of a subset current is related to the noti…
