In this paper we study conjugacy separability of subdirect products of two free (or hyperbolic) groups. We establish necessary and sufficient criteria and apply them to fibre products to produce a finitely presented group $G_1$ in which all finite index subgroups are conjugacy separable, but which has an index $2$ overgroup that is not conjugacy separable. Conversely, we construct a finitely presented group $G_2$ which has a non-conjugacy separable subgroup of index $2$ such that every finite index normal overgroup of $G_2$ is conjugacy separable. The normality of the overgroup is essential in the last example, as such a group $G_2$ will always posses an index $3$ overgroup that is not conjugacy separable.
Finally, we characterize $p$-conjugacy separable subdirect products of two free groups, where $p$ is a prime. We show that fibre products provide a natural correspondence between residually finite $p$-groups and $p$-conjugacy separable subdirect products of two non-abelian free groups. As a consequence, we deduce that the open question about the existence of an infinite finitely presented residually finite $p$-group is equivalent to the question about the existence of a finitely generated $p$-conjugacy separable full subdirect product of infinite index in the direct product of two free groups.
This paper initiates the study of effective twisted conjugacy separability for finitely generated groups, which measures the complexity of separating distinct twisted conjugacy classes via finite quotients. The focus is on nilpotent groups, and our main result shows that there is a polynomial upper bound for twisted conjugacy separability. That allows us to study regular conjugacy separability in the case of virtually nilpotent groups, where we compute a polynomial upper bound as well. As another application, we improve the work of the second author by giving a precise calculation of conjugacy…
It is proved that generalized free product of two finite p-groups is a conjugacy p-separable group if and only if it is residually finite p-groups. This result is then applied to establish some sufficient conditions for conjugacy p-separability of generalized free product of infinite groups.
There are limit groups having non-conjugate elements whose images are conjugate in every free quotient. Towers over free groups are freely conjugacy separable.
We study generalisations of conjugacy separability in restricted wreath products of groups. We provide an effective upper bound for $\mathcal{C}$-conjugacy separability of a wreath product $A \wr B$ in terms of the $\mathcal{C}$-conjugacy separability of $A$ and $B$, the growth of $\mathcal{C}$-cyclic subgroup separability of $B$, and the $\mathcal{C}$-residual girth of $B.$ As an application, we provide a characterisation of when $A \wr B$ is $p$-conjugacy separable. We use this characterisation to the provide for each prime $p$ an example of wreath products with infinite base group that are …
A group G is called subgroup conjugacy separable (abbreviated as SCS), if any two finitely generated and non-conjugate subgroups of G remain non-conjugate in some finite quotient of G. We prove that the free groups and the fundamental groups of finite trees of finite groups with some normalizer condition are SCS. We also introduce the subgroup into-conjugacy separability property and prove that the above groups have this property too.
A group $G$ is called subgroup conjugacy separable (abbreviated as SCS), if any two finitely generated and non-conjugate subgroups of $G$ remain non-conjugate in some finite quotient of $G$. We prove that free groups and the fundamental groups of orientable closed compact surfaces are SCS.
We show that the class of $\mathcal{C}$-hereditarily conjugacy separable groups is closed under taking arbitrary graph products whenever the class $\mathcal{C}$ is an extension closed variety of finite groups. As a consequence we show that the class of $\mathcal{C}$-conjugacy separable groups is closed under taking arbitrary graph products. In particular, we show that right angled Coxeter groups are hereditarily conjugacy separable and 2-hereditarily conjugacy separable, and we show that infinitely generated right angled Artin groups are hereditarily conjugacy separable and $p$-hereditarily co…
We prove that finite index subgroups of right angled Artin groups are conjugacy separable. We then apply this result to establish various properties of other classes of groups. In particular, we show that any word hyperbolic Coxeter group contains a conjugacy separable subgroup of finite index and has a residually finite outer automorphism group. Another consequence of the main result is that Bestvina-Brady groups are conjugacy separable and have solvable conjugacy problem.
It is proved that for any prime $p$ a finitely generated nilpotent group is conjugacy separable in the class of finite $p$-groups if and only if the torsion subgroup of it is a finite $p$-group and the quotient group by the torsion subgroup is abelian.
We prove that every subnormal subgroup of p-power index in a right-angled Artin group is conjugacy p-separable. As an application, we prove that every right-angled Artin group is conjugacy separable in the class of torsion-free nilpotent groups. As another application, we prove that the outer automorphism group of a right-angled Artin group is virtually residually p-finite. We also prove that the Torelli group of a right-angled group is residually torsion-free nilpotent, hence residually p-finite and bi-orderable.
We prove that even Coxeter groups, whose Coxeter diagrams contain no (4,4,2) triangles, are conjugacy separable. In particular, this applies to all right-angled Coxeter groups or word hyperbolic even Coxeter groups. For an arbitrary Coxeter group W, we also study the relationship between Coxeter generating sets that give rise to the same collection of parabolic subgroups. As an application we show that if an automorphism of W preserves the conjugacy class of every sufficiently short element then it is inner. We then derive consequences for the outer automorphism groups of Coxeter groups.
A group $G$ is called subgroup conjugacy separable (abbreviated as SCS) if any two finitely generated and non-conjugate subgroups of $G$ remain non-conjugate in some finite quotient of $G$. An into-conjugacy version of SCS is abbreviated by SICS. We prove that if $G$ is a hyperbolic group, $H_1$ is a quasiconvex subgroup of $G$, and $H_2$ is a subgroup of $G$ which is elementwise conjugate into $H_1$, then there exists a finite index subgroup of $H_2$ which is conjugate into $H_1$. As corollary, we deduce that fundamental groups of closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds and torsion-free small cancellat…
We use wreath products to provide criteria for a group to be conjugacy separable or omnipotent. These criteria are in terms of virtual retractions onto cyclic subgroups. We give two applications: a straightforward topological proof of the theorem of Stebe that infinite-order elements of Fuchsian groups (of the first type) are conjugacy distinguished, and a proof that surface groups are omnipotent.
We use the theory of group actions on profinite trees to prove that the fundamental group of a finite, 1-acylindrical graph of free groups with finitely generated edge groups is conjugacy separable. This has several applications: we prove that positive, $C'(1/6)$ one-relator groups are conjugacy separable; we provide a conjugacy separable version of the Rips construction; we use this latter to provide an example of two finitely presented, residually finite groups that have isomorphic profinite completions, such that one is conjugacy separable and the other does not even have solvable conjugacy…
Let M = H^3 / Γbe a hyperbolic 3-manifold of finite volume. We show that if H and K are abelian subgroups of Γand g is in Γ, then the double coset HgK is separable in Γ. As a consequence we prove that if M is a closed, orientable, Haken 3-manifold and the fundamental group of every hyperbolic piece of the torus decomposition of M is conjugacy separable then so is the fundamental group of M. Invoking recent work of Agol and Wise, it follows that if M is a compact, orientable 3-manifold then π_1(M) is conjugacy separable.
In this article, we completely characterize the asymptotic behavior of conjugacy separability for the lamplighter groups. More generally, we give exponential upper and lower bounds for all wreath products of finitely generated abelian groups where the acting group is infinite and base group is finite.
We give effective proofs of residual finiteness and conjugacy separability for finitely generated nilpotent groups. In particular, we give precise asymptotic bounds for a function introduced by Bou-Rabee that measures how large the quotients that are need to separate non-identity elements of bounded length from the identity which improves the work of Bou-Rabee. Similarly, we give polynomial upper and lower bounds for an analogous function introduced by Lawton, Louder, and McReynolds that measures how large the quotients that are need to separate pairs of distinct conjugacy classes of bounded w…
Let G be a reductive linear algebraic group over an algebraically closed field of characteristic p > 0. A subgroup of G is said to be separable in G if its global and infinitesimal centralizers have the same dimension. We study the interaction between the notion of separability and Serre's concept of G-complete reducibility for subgroups of G. The separability hypothesis appears in many general theorems concerning G-complete reducibility. We demonstrate that many of these results fail without this hypothesis. On the other hand, we prove that if G is a connected reductive group and p is very go…
Let $G$ be a simple algebraic group of type $E_n (n=6,7,8)$ defined over an algebraically closed field $k$ of characteristic $2$. We present examples of triples of closed reductive groups $H<M<G$ such that $H$ is $G$-completely reducible, but not $M$-completely reducible. As an application, we consider a question of Külshammer on representations of finite groups in reductive groups. We also consider a rationality problem for $G$-complete reducibility and a problem concerning conjugacy classes.
In this paper we study conjugacy and subgroup separability properties in the class of nilpotent $\mathbb{Q}[x]$-powered groups. Many of the techniques used to study these properties in the context of ordinary nilpotent groups carry over naturally to this more general class. Among other results, we offer a generalization of a theorem due to G. Baumslag. The generalized version states that if $G$ is a finitely $\mathbb{Q}[x]$-generated $\mathbb{Q}[x]$-torsion-free nilpotent $\mathbb{Q}[x]$-powered group and $H$ is a $\mathbb{Q}[x]$-isolated subgroup of $G,$ then for any prime $π\in \mathbb{Q}[x]…
Let $G$ be a connected reductive algebraic group defined over an algebraically closed field $k$. The aim of this paper is to present a method to find triples $(G,M,H)$ with the following three properties. Property 1: $G$ is simple and $k$ has characteristic 2. Property 2: $H$ and $M$ are closed reductive subgroups of $G$ such that $H<M<G$, and $(G,M)$ is a reductive pair. Property 3: $H$ is $G$-completely reducible, but not $M$-completely reducible. We exhibit our method by presenting a new example of such a triple in $G=E_7$. Then we consider a rationality problem and a problem concerning con…
We study the notion of twisted conjugacy separability (essentially introduced in our previous paper for a proof of twisted version of Burnside-Frobenius theorem) and some related properties. We give examples of groups with and without this property and study its behavior under some extensions. An affirmative answer to the twisted Dehn conjugacy problem for polycyclic-by-finite group is obtained. Some problems for the further study are indicated.
We provide a geometric characterization of manifolds of dimension 3 with fundamental groups of which all conjugacy classes except 1 are infinite, namely of which the von Neumann algebras are factors of type $II_1$: they are essentially the 3-manifolds with infinite fundamental groups on which there does not exist any Seifert fibration. Otherwise said and more precisely, let $M$ be a compact connected 3-manifold and let $Γ$ be its fundamental group, supposed to be infinite and with at least one finite conjugacy class besides 1. If $M$ is orientable, then $Γ$ is the fundamental group of a Seifer…
We show that the number of conjugacy classes of intersections $A\cap B^g$, for fixed finitely generated subgroups $A, B<F$ of a free group, is bounded above in terms of the ranks of $A$ and $B$; this confirms an intuition of Walter Neumann. This result was previously known only in the case where $A$ or $B$ is cyclic by the $w$-cycles theorem of Helfer and Wise and, independently, Louder and Wilton. In order to prove our main theorem, we introduce new results regarding the structure of fibre products of finite graphs. We work with a generalised definition of graph immersions so that our results…
