A group-word w is called concise if whenever the set of w-values in a group G is finite it always follows that the verbal subgroup w(G) is finite. More generally, a word w is said to be concise in a class of groups X if whenever the set of w-values is finite for a group G in X, it always follows that w(G) is finite. P. Hall asked whether every word is concise. Due to Ivanov the answer to this problem is known to be negative. It is still an open problem whether every word is concise in the class of residually finite groups. A word w is rational if the number of solutions to the equation w=g is the same as the number of solutions to w=g^e for every finite group G and for every e relatively prime to |G|. We observe that any rational word is concise in the class of residually finite groups. Further we give a sufficient condition for rationality of a word. This is used to produce a new family of words that are concise in the class of residually finite groups.
Given a group-word w and a group G, the verbal subgroup w(G) is the one generated by all w-values in G. The word w is called concise if w(G) is finite whenever the set of w-values in G is finite. It is an open question whether every word is concise in residually finite groups. Let w=w(x_1,..,x_k) be a multilinear commutator word, n a positive integer and q a prime power. In the present article we show that the word [w^q,_n y] is concise in residually finite groups while the word [w,_n y] is boundedly concise in residually finite groups.
A group-word w is called concise if whenever the set of w-values in a group G is finite it always follows that the verbal subgroup w(G) is finite. More generally, a word w is said to be concise in a class of groups X if whenever the set of w-values is finite for a group $G\in X$, it always follows that w(G) is finite. P. Hall asked whether every word is concise. Due to Ivanov the answer to this problem is known to be negative. Dan Segal asked whether every word is concise in the class of residually finite groups. In this direction we prove that if w is a multilinear commutator and q is a prime…
The study of verbal subgroups within a group is well-known for being an effective tool to obtain structural information about a group. Therefore, conditions that allow the classification of words in a free group are of paramount importance. One of the most studied problems is to establish which words are concise, where a word $w$ is said to be concise if the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is finite in each group $G$ in which $w$ takes only a finite number of values. The purpose of this article is to present some results, in which a hierarchy among words is introduced, generalizing the concept of conci…
Given a group-word w and a group G, the verbal subgroup w(G) is the one generated by all w-values in G. The word w is said to be concise if w(G) is finite whenever the set of w-values in G is finite. In the sixties P. Hall asked whether every word is concise but later Ivanov answered this question in the negative. On the other hand, Hall's question remains wide open in the class of residually finite groups. In the present article we show that various generalizations of the Engel word are concise in residually finite groups.
A group word $w$ is said to be strongly concise in a class $\mathscr C$ of profinite groups if, for any group $G$ in $\mathscr C$, either $w$ takes at least continuum values in $G$ or the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is finite. It is conjectured that all words are strongly concise in the class of all profinite groups. Earlier Detomi, Klopsch, and Shumyatsky proved this conjecture for multilinear commutator words, as well as for some other particular words. They also proved that every group word is strongly concise in the class of nilpotent profinite groups. In the present paper we prove that for any…
Let w be a group word. It is conjectured that if w has only countably many values in a profinite group G, then the verbal subgroup w(G) is finite. In the present paper we confirm the conjecture in the cases where w is a multilinear commutator word, or the word x^2, or the word [x^2,y].
A group word $w$ is said to be strongly concise in a class $\mathcal{C}$ of profinite groups if, for every group $G$ in $\mathcal{C}$ such that $w$ takes less than $2^{\aleph_0}$ values in $G$, the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is finite. Detomi, Morigi and Shumyatsky established that multilinear commutator words -- and the particular words $x^2$ and $[x^2,y]$ -- have the property that the corresponding verbal subgroup is finite in a profinite group $G$ whenever the word takes at most countably many values in $G$. They conjectured that, in fact, this should be true for every word. In particular, thei…
We prove that outer commutator words are uniformly concise, i.e. if an outer commutator word w takes m different values in a group G, then the order of the verbal subgroup w(G) is bounded by a function depending only on m and not on w or G. This is obtained as a consequence of a structure theorem for the subgroup w(G), which is valid if G is soluble, and without assuming that w takes finitely many values in G. More precisely, there is an abelian series of w(G), such that every section of the series can be generated by values of w all of whose powers are also values of w in that section. For th…
Given a group-word $w$ and a group $G$, the set of $w$-values in $G$ is denoted by $G_w$ and the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is the one generated by $G_w$. The word $w$ is concise if $w(G)$ is finite for all groups $G$ in which $G_w$ is finite. We obtain several results supporting the conjecture that the word $[u_1,\dots,u_s]$ is concise whenever the words $u_1,\dots,u_s$ are non-commutator.
Let $G$ be a finite group. We show that the order of the subgroup generated by coprime $γ_k$-commutators (respectively $δ_k$-commutators) is bounded in terms of the size of the set of coprime $γ_k$-commutators (respectively $δ_k$-commutators). This is in parallel with the classical theorem due to Turner-Smith that the words $γ_k$ and $δ_k$ are concise.
A result of Gersten states that if $G$ is a hyperbolic group with integral cohomological dimension $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Z}}(G)=2$ then every finitely presented subgroup is hyperbolic. We generalize this result for the rational case $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Q}}(G)=2$. In particular, our result applies to the class of torsion-free hyperbolic groups $G$ with $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Z}}(G)=3$ and $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Q}}(G)=2$ discovered by Bestvina and Mess.
The Gilman-Maskit algorithm for determining the discreteness or non-discreteness of a two-generator subgroup of $\mathrm{PSL}_2\mathbb{R}$ terminates with a pair of generators that are Farey words. The Farey words are primitive words that are indexed by rational numbers and infinity. The E-words, primitive words with palindromic product forms, are also indexed by rational numbers and infinity. We show a modification of the Gilman-Maskit algorithm so that the stopping generators are E-words.
This note proves a generalisation to inverse semigroups of Anisimov's theorem that a group has regular word problem if and only if it is finite, answering a question of Stuart Margolis. The notion of word problem used is the two-tape word problem -- the set of all pairs of words over a generating set for the semigroup which both represent the same element.
Given a group word $w$ and a group $G$, the set of $w$-values in $G$ is denoted by $G_w$ and the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is the one generated by $G_w$. In the present paper we consider profinite groups admitting a word $w$ such that the cardinality of $G_w$ is less than $2^{\aleph_0}$ and $w(G)$ is generated by finitely many $w$-values. For several families of words $w$ we show that under these assumptions $w(G)$ must be finite. Our results are related to the concept of conciseness of group words.
A group presentation is said to have rational growth if the generating series associated to its growth function represents a rational function. A long-standing open question asks whether the Heisenberg group has rational growth for all finite generating sets, and we settle this question affirmatively. We also establish almost-convexity for all finite generating sets. Previously, both of these properties were known to hold for hyperbolic groups and virtually abelian groups, and there were no further examples in either case. Our main method is a close description of the relationship between word…
Let $w$ be a group-word. Suppose that the set of all $w$-values in a profinite group $G$ is contained in a union of countably many subgroups. It is natural to ask in what way the structure of the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ depends on the properties of the covering subgroups. The present article is a survey of recent results related to that question. In particular we survey results on finite and countable coverings of word-values (mostly commutators) by procyclic, abelian, nilpotent, and soluble subgroups, as well as subgroups with finiteness conditions. The last section of the paper is devoted to …
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.
We show that the following problems are decidable in a rank 2 free group F_2: does a given finitely generated subgroup H contain primitive elements? and does H meet the orbit of a given word u under the action of G, the group of automorphisms of F_2? Moreover, decidability subsists if we allow H to be a rational subset of F_2, or alternatively if we restrict G to be a rational subset of the set of invertible substitutions (a.k.a. positive automorphisms). In higher rank, we show the decidability of the following weaker problem: given a finitely generated subgroup H, a word u and an integer k, d…
Let $w$ be a word in $k$ variables. For a finite nilpotent group $G$, a conjecture of Amit states that $N_w(1) \ge |G|^{k-1}$, where $N_w(1)$ is the number of $k$-tuples $(g_1,...,g_k)\in G^{(k)}$ such that $w(g_1,...,g_k)=1$. Currently, this conjecture is known to be true for groups of nilpotency class 2. Here we consider a generalized version of Amit's conjecture, and prove that $N_w(g) \ge |G|^{k-2}$, where $g$ is a $w$-value in $G$, for finite groups $G$ of odd order and nilpotency class 2. If $w$ is a word in two variables, we further show that $N_w(g) \ge |G|$, where $g$ is a $w$-value i…
We characterize rational series over the free group by using an operator introduced by A. Connes. We prove that rational Malcev--Neumann series posses rational expressions without simplifications. Finally, we develop an effective algorithm for solving the word problem in the free skew field.
In this paper, we study the word problem for automaton semigroups and automaton groups from a complexity point of view. As an intermediate concept between automaton semigroups and automaton groups, we introduce automaton-inverse semigroups, which are generated by partial, yet invertible automata. We show that there is an automaton-inverse semigroup and, thus, an automaton semigroup with a PSPACE-complete word problem. We also show that there is an automaton group for which the word problem with a single rational constraint is PSPACE-complete. Additionally, we provide simpler constructions for …
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…
A finite group is called semi-rational if the distribution induced on it by any word map is a virtual character. Amit and Vishne give a sufficient condition for a group to be semi-rational, and ask whether it is also necessary. We answer this in the negative, by exhibiting two new criteria for semi-rationality, each giving rise to an infinite family of semi-rational groups which do not satisfy the Amit-Vishne condition. On the other hand, we use recent work of Lubotzky to show that for finite simple groups the Amit-Vishne condition is indeed necessary, and we use this to construct the first kn…
The aim of this paper is to present a PSPACE algorithm which yields a finite graph of exponential size and which describes the set of all solutions of equations in free groups as well as the set of all solutions of equations in free monoids with involution in the presence of rational constraints. This became possible due to the recently invented emph{recompression} technique of the second author. He successfully applied the recompression technique for pure word equations without involution or rational constraints. In particular, his method could not be used as a black box for free groups (even…
It is well known that the problem solving equations in virtually free groups can be reduced to the problem of solving twisted word equations with regular constraints over free monoids with involution. In this paper we prove that the set of all solutions of a twisted word equation is an EDT0L language whose specification can be computed in $\mathsf{PSPACE}$. Within the same complexity bound we can decide whether the solution set is empty, finite, or infinite. In the second part of the paper we apply the results for twisted equations to obtain in $\mathsf{PSPACE}$ an EDT0L description of the sol…
