We introduce and study the bounded word problem and the precise word problem for groups given by means of generators and defining relations. For example, for every finitely presented group, the bounded word problem is in NP, i.e., it can be solved in nondeterministic polynomial time, and the precise word problem is in PSPACE. The main technical result of the paper states that, for certain finite presentations of groups, which include the Baumslag-Solitar one-relator groups and free products of cyclic groups, the bounded word problem and the precise word problem can be solved in polylogarithmic space. As consequences of developed techniques that can be described as calculus of brackets, we obtain polylogarithmic space bounds for the computational complexity of the diagram problem for free groups, for the width problem for elements of free groups, and for computation of the area defined by polygonal singular closed curves in the plane. We also obtain polynomial time bounds for these problems.
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…
We introduce a new method for computing the word length of an element of Thompson's group F with respect to a "consecutive" generating set of the form X_n={x_0,x_1,...,x_n}, which is a subset of the standard infinite generating set for F. We use this method to show that (F,X_n) is not almost convex, and has pockets of increasing, though bounded, depth dependent on n.
The word problem is an old and central problem in (computational) group theory. It is well-known that the word problem is undecidable in general, but decidable for specific types of presentations. Consistent polycyclic presentations are an important class of group presentations with solvable word problem. These presentations play a fundamental role in the algorithmic theory of polycyclic groups. Problems analogous to the word problem arise when computing with other algebraic structures. Various aspects of this topic are considered in the literature. The aim of this paper is to provide a genera…
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.
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…
A (t,n)-threshold secret sharing scheme is a method to distribute a secret among n participants in such a way that any t participants can recover the secret, but no t-1 participants can. In this paper, we propose two secret sharing schemes using non-abelian groups. One scheme is the special case where all the participants must get together to recover the secret. The other one is a (t,n)-threshold scheme that is a combination of Shamir's scheme and the group-theoretic scheme proposed in this paper.
We show that if the Schützenberger graph of every positive word, that contains an $R$-word only once as it's subword, is finite over an Adain presentation $\langle X|u=v\rangle$, then the Schützenberger graph of every positive word is finite over the presentation $\langle X|u=v\rangle$. This enable us to solve the word problem ffor some classes of one relation Adian inverse semigroups.
In this paper we give new presentations of the braid groups and the pure braid groups of a closed surface. We also give an algorithm to solve the word problem in these groups, using the given presentations.
We show that being finitely presentable and being finitely presentable with solvable word problem are quasi-isometry invariants of finitely generated left cancellative monoids. Our main tool is an elementary, but useful, geometric characterisation of finite presentability for left cancellative monoids. We also give examples to show that this characterisation does not extend to monoids in general, and indeed that properties such as solvable word problem are not isometry invariants for general monoids.
The word problem of a group is a very important question. The word problem in the braid group is of particular interest for topologists, algebraists and geometers. In previouse article we have looked at the braid group from a topological point of view, and thus using a new computerized representation of some elements of the fundamental group we gave a solution for its word problem. In this paper we will give an algorithm that will make it possible to transform the new presentation into a syntactic presentation. This will make it possible to computerize the group operation to sets of elements o…
For finitely generated nilpotent groups, we employ Mal'cev coordinates to solve several classical algorithmic problems efficiently. Computation of normal forms, the membership problem, the conjugacy problem, and computation of presentations for subgroups are solved using only logarithmic space and quasilinear time. Logarithmic space presentation-uniform versions of these algorithms are provided. Compressed-word versions of the same problems, in which each input word is provided as a straight-line program, are solved in polynomial time.
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…
A large class of positive finite presentations of the braid groups is found and studied. It is shown that no presentations but known exceptions in this class have the property that equivalent braid words are also equivalent under positive relations.
Let $U$ be an arbitrary word in letters $x_1^{\pm 1}, ..., x_m^{\pm 1}$ and $m \ge 2$. We prove that the group presentation $<x_1, ..., x_m \|\ U x_i U^{-1} = x_{i+1}, i=1,..., m-1>$ is aspherical. The proof is based upon prior partial results of A. Klyachko and the author on the asphericity of such presentations.
We describe generators and defining relations for the commutator subgroup of topological full groups of minimal subshifts. We show that the word problem in a topological full group is solvable if and only if the language of the underlying subshift is recursive.
Asymptotic properties of finitely generated subgroups of free groups, and of finite group presentations, can be considered in several fashions, depending on the way these objects are represented and on the distribution assumed on these representations: here we assume that they are represented by tuples of reduced words (generators of a subgroup) or of cyclically reduced words (relators). Classical models consider fixed size tuples of words (e.g. the few-generator model) or exponential size tuples (e.g. Gromov's density model), and they usually consider that equal length words are equally likel…
We prove that if $G$ is a free-torsion group and $w(t)$ is a word in the alphabet $G \sqcup \{t^{\pm 1}\}$ with exponent sum one, then the group $<G,t|(w(t))^k = 1>$, where $k \geq 2$, is relatively hyperbolic with respect to $G$.
In the paper we give a survey of rather new notions and results which generalize classical ones in the theory of braids. Among such notions are various inverse monoids of partial braids. We also observe presentations different from standard Artin presentation for generalizations of braids. Namely, we consider presentations with small number of generators, Sergiescu graph-presentations and Birman-Ko-Lee presentation. The work of V.V.Chaynikov on the word and conjugacy problems for the singular braid monoid in Birman-Ko-Lee generators is described as well.
Self-similar groups provide a rich source of groups with interesting properties; e.g., infinite torsion groups (Burnside groups) and groups with an intermediate word growth. Various self-similar groups can be described by a recursive (possibly infinite) presentation, a so-called finite $L$-presentation. Finite $L$-presentations allow numerous algorithms for finitely presented groups to be generalized to this special class of recursive presentations. We give an overview of the algorithms for finitely $L$-presented groups. As applications, we demonstrate how their implementation in a computer al…
Let H be a group obtained from a group G by adding one generator and one relator which is a proper power of a unimodular word. The main aim of this paper is to prove that G is a malnormal subgroup of H. This implies that if G is a nontrivial group, then the group H has a trivial center.
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 generalize presentations of the fundamental group of discriminant complements and arrive at a class of presentations associated naturally with words in the free monoid of the alphabet $σ_1,\dots,σ_{n-1}$. Our study addresses invariance properties of these presentations and the presented groups under various operations on the words. In particular we prove that the group does only depend on the corresponding element in the positive braid monoid, and under mild hypotheses only on its conjugacy class in the braid group.
The statement ``no nonabelian simple group can be obtained from a nonsimple group by adding one generator and one relator" 1) is equivalent to the Kervaire--Laudenbach conjecture; 2) becomes true under the additional assumption that the initial nonsimple group is either finite or torsion-free. Key words: Kervaire--Laudenbach conjecture, relative presentations, simple groups, car motion, cocar comotion. AMS MSC: 20E32, 20F05, 20F06.
We present a theoretical algorithm which, given any finite presentation of a group as input, will terminate with answer yes if and only if the group is large. We then implement a practical version of this algorithm using Magma and apply it to a range of presentations. Our main focus is on 2-generator 1-relator presentations where we have a complete picture of largeness if the relator has exponent sum zero in one generator and word length at most 12, as well as when the relator is in the commutator subgroup and has word length at most 18. Indeed all but a tiny number of presentations define lar…
Suppose that G is a nontrivial torsion-free group and w is a word in the alphabet G\cup\{x_1^{\pm1},...,x_n^{\pm1}\} such that the word w' obtained from w by erasing all letters belonging to G is not a proper power in the free group F(x_1,...,x_n). We show how to reduce the study of the relative presentation Ĝ=<G,x_1,x_2,...,x_n | w=1> to the case n=1. It turns out that an "n-variable" group Ĝ can be constructed from similar "one-variable" groups using an explicit construction similar to wreath product. As an illustration, we prove that, for n>1, the centre of Ĝ is always trivial. For n=1, the…
We consider groups defined by cyclic presentations where the defining word has length three and the cyclic presentation satisfies the T(6) small cancellation condition. We classify when these groups are hyperbolic. When combined with known results, this completely classifies the hyperbolic T(6) cyclically presented groups.
We consider groups defined by non-empty balanced presentations with the property that each relator is of the form R(x,y), where x and y are distinct generators and R(.,.) is determined by some fixed cyclically reduced word R(a,b) that involves both a and b. To every such presentation we associate a directed graph whose vertices correspond to the generators and whose arcs correspond to the relators. Under the hypothesis that the girth of the underlying undirected graph is at least 4, we show that the resulting groups are non-trivial and cannot be finite of rank 3 or higher. Without the hypothes…
Adding two generators and one arbitrary relator to a nontrivial torsion-free group, we always obtain an SQ-universal group. In the course of the proof of this theorem, we obtain some other results of independent interest. For instance, adding one generator and one relator in which the exponent sum of the additional generator is one to a free product of two nontrivial torsion-free groups, we also obtain an SQ-universal group. Key words: relative presentations, one-relator groups, SQ-universality, equations over groups.
Adyan and Rabin showed that most properties of groups cannot be algorithmically recognized from a finite presentation alone. We prove that, if one is also given a solution to the word problem, then the class of fundamental groups of closed, geometric 3-manifolds is algorithmically recognizable. In our terminology, the class of geometric 3-manifold groups is `recursive modulo the word problem'.
One of the most interesting questions about a group is if its word problem can be solved and how. The word problem in the braid group is of particular interest to topologists, algebraists and geometers, and is the target of intensive current research. We look at the braid group from a topological point of view (rather than a geometrical one). The braid group is defined by the action of diffeomorphisms on the fundamental group of a punctured disk. We exploit the topological definition of the braid group in order to give a new approach for solving its word problem. Our algorithm is faster, in co…
It has been conjectured that in a braid group, or more generally in a Garside group, applying any sequence of monotone equivalences and word reversings can increase the length of a word by at most a linear factor depending on the group presentation only. We give a counter-example to this conjecture, but, on the other hand, we establish length upper bounds for the case when only right reversing is involved. We also state a new conjecture which would, like the above one, imply that the space complexity of the handle reduction algorithm is linear.
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…
Suppose that G is a nontrivial torsion-free group and w is a word over the alphabet G\cup\{x_1^{\pm1},...,x_n^{\pm1}\}. It is proved that for n\ge2 the group G=<G,x_1,x_2,...,x_n | w=1> always contains a nonabelian free subgroup. For n=1 the question about the existence of nonabelian free subgroups in G is answered completely in the unimodular case (i.e., when the exponent sum of x_1 in w is one). Some generalisations of these results are discussed.
We give polynomial-time dynamic-programming algorithms finding the areas of words in the presentations $\langle a, b \mid a, b \rangle$ and $\langle a, b \mid a^k, b^k; \ k \in \mathbb{N} \rangle$ of the trivial group. In the first of these two cases, area was studied under the name spelling length by Majumdar, Robbins and Zyskin in the context of the design of liquid crystals. We explain how the problem of calculating it can be reinterpreted in terms of RNA-folding. In the second, area is what Jiang called width and studied when counting fixed points for self-maps of a compact surface, consid…
Experiment shows that the reverse length-lexicographical word ordering consistently yields far smaller Gröbner bases for modular p-group algebras than the length-lexicographical ordering. For the so-called Jennings word ordering, based on a special power-conjugate group presentation, the associated monomial algebra is a group invariant.
The usual way to investigate the statistical properties of finitely generated subgroups of free groups, and of finite presentations of groups, is based on the so-called word-based distribution: subgroups are generated (finite presentations are determined) by randomly chosen k-tuples of reduced words, whose maximal length is allowed to tend to infinity. In this paper we adopt a different, though equally natural point of view: we investigate the statistical properties of the same objects, but with respect to the so-called graph-based distribution, recently introduced by Bassino, Nicaud and Weil.…
A relative one-relator presentation has the form P = < X,H ; R > where X is a set, H is a group, and R is a group word on X and H. We show that if the group word on X obtained from R by deleting all the terms from H has what we call the unique max-min property, then the group defined by P is residually finite if and only if H is residually finite (Theorem 1). We apply this to obtain new results concerning the residual finiteness of (ordinary) one-relator groups (Theorem 4). We also obtain results concerning the conjugacy problem for one-relator groups (Theorem 5), and results concerning the re…
Let S be a semigroup and let T be a subsemigroup of S. Then T acts on S by left- and by right multiplication. This gives rise to a partition of the complement of T in S, and to each equivalence class of this partition we naturally associate a relative Schutzenberger group. We show how generating sets for S may be used to obtain generating sets for T and the Schutzenberger groups, and vice versa. We also give a method for constructing a presentation for S from given presentations of T and the Schutzenberger groups. These results are then used to show that several important properties are preser…
We present four generalized small cancellation conditions for finite presentations and solve the word- and conjugacy problem in each case. Our conditions $W$ and $W^*$ contain the non-metric small cancellation cases C(6), C(4)T(4), C(3)T(6) (see [LS]) but are considerably more general. $W$ also contains as a special case the small cancellation condition $W(6)$ of Juhasz [J2]. If a finite presentation satisfies $W$ or $W^*$ then it has a quadratic isoperimetric inequality and therefore solvable word problem. For the class $W$ this was first observed by Gersten in [G7] which also contains an ide…
A group obtained from a nontrivial group by adding one generator and one relator which is a proper power of a word in which the exponent-sum of the additional generator is one contains the free square of the initial group and almost always (with one obvious exception) contains a non-abelian free subgroup. If the initial group is involution-free or the relator is at least third power, then the obtained group is SQ-universal and relatively hyperbolic with respect to the initial group.
It is undecidable in general whether a given finitely presented group is word hyperbolic. We use the concept of pregroups, introduced by Stallings, to define a new class of van Kampen diagrams, which represent groups as quotients of virtually free groups. We then present a polynomial-time procedure which analyses these diagrams, and either returns an explicit linear Dehn function for the presentation, or returns fail, together with its reasons for failure. Furthermore, if our procedure succeeds we are often able to produce in polynomial time a word problem solver for the presentation that runs…
We give a new presentation of the braid group $B$ of the complex reflection group $G(e,e,r)$ which is positive and homogeneous, and for which the generators map to reflections in the corresponding complex reflection group. We show that this presentation gives rise to a Garside structure for $B$ with Garside element a kind of generalised Coxeter element, and hence obtain solutions to the word and conjugacy problems for $B$.
We will study the presentations of fundamental groups of the complement of complexified real affine line arrangements that do not contain two parallel lines. By Yoshinaga's minimal presentation, we can give positive homogeneous presentations of the fundamental groups. We consider the associated monoids defined by the presentations. It turns out that, in some cases, left (resp. right) \emph{least common multiple} does not always exist. Hence, the monoids are neither \emph{Garside} nor \emph{Artin}. Nevertheless, we will show that they carry certain particular elements similar to the \emph{funda…
The standard $(n, k, d)$ model of random groups is a model where the relators are chosen randomly from the set of cyclically reduced words of length $k$ on an $n$-element generating set. Gromov's density model of random groups considers the case where $n$ is fixed, and $k$ tends to infinity. We instead fix $k$, and let $n$ tend to infinity. We prove that for all $k \geq 2$ at density $d > 1/2$ a random group in this model is trivial or cyclic of order two, whilst for $d < \frac{1}{2}$ such a random group is infinite and hyperbolic. In addition we show that for $d<\frac{1}{k}$ such a random gro…
Frobenius observed that the number of times an element of a finite group is obtained as a commutator is given by a specific combination of the irreducible characters of the group. More generally, for any word w the number of times an element is obtained by substitution in w is a class function. Thus, it has a presentation as a combination of irreducible characters, called its Fourier expansion. In this paper we present formulas regarding the Fourier expansion of words in which some letters appear twice. These formulas give simple proofs for classical results, as well as new ones.
We prove that an Artin-Tits group of type $\tilde C$ is the group of fractions of a Garside monoid, analogous to the known dual monoids associated with Artin-Tits groups of spherical type and obtained by the "generated group" method. This answers, in this particular case, a general question on Artin-Tits groups, gives a new presentation of an Artin-Tits group of type $\tilde C$, and has consequences for the word problem, the computation of some centralizers or the triviality of the center. A key point of the proof is to show that this group is a group of fixed points in an Artin-Tits group of …
Consider a relatively hyperbolic group G. We prove that if G is finitely presented, so are its parabolic subgroups. Moreover, a presentation of the parabolic subgroups can be found algorithmically from a presentation of G, a solution of its word problem, and generating sets of the parabolic subgroups. We also give an algorithm that finds parabolic subgroups in a given recursively enumerable class of groups.
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.
A conjugation-free geometric presentation of a fundamental group is a presentation with the natural topological generators $x_1, ..., x_n$ and the cyclic relations: $x_{i_k}x_{i_{k-1}} ... x_{i_1} = x_{i_{k-1}} ... x_{i_1} x_{i_k} = ... = x_{i_1} x_{i_k} ... x_{i_2}$ with no conjugations on the generators. We have already proved that if the graph of the arrangement is a disjoint union of cycles, then its fundamental group has a conjugation-free geometric presentation. In this paper, we extend this property to arrangements whose graphs are a disjoint union of cycle-tree graphs. Moreover, we stu…
In this paper, we introduce a geometric statistic called the "sprawl" of a group with respect to a generating set, based on the average distance in the word metric between pairs of words of equal length. The sprawl quantifies a certain obstruction to hyperbolicity. Group presentations with maximum sprawl (i.e., without this obstruction) are called statistically hyperbolic. We first relate sprawl to curvature and show that nonelementary hyperbolic groups are statistically hyperbolic, then give some results for products, for Diestel-Leader graphs and lamplighter groups. In free abelian groups, t…
