We construct a family of infinite simple groups that we call \emph{twisted Brin-Thompson groups}, generalizing Brin's higher-dimensional Thompson groups $sV$ ($s\in\mathbb{N}$). We use twisted Brin-Thompson groups to prove a variety of results regarding simple groups. For example, we prove that every finitely generated group embeds quasi-isometrically as a subgroup of a two-generated simple group, strengthening a result of Bridson. We also produce examples of simple groups that contain every $sV$ and hence every right-angled Artin group, including examples of type $\textrm{F}_\infty$ and a family of examples of type $\textrm{F}_{n-1}$ but not of type $\textrm{F}_n$, for arbitrary $n\in\mathbb{N}$. This provides the second known infinite family of simple groups distinguished by their finiteness properties.
We construct braided versions $sV_{br}$ of the Brin-Thompson groups $sV$ and prove that they are of type $F_\infty$. The proof involves showing that the matching complexes of colored arcs on surfaces are highly connected.
If $ϕ$ is an automorphism of a group $G$ and $x,y\in G$, we say that $x$ and $y$ are $ϕ$-twisted conjugates if there exists an $z\in G$ such that $y=z.x.ϕ(z^{-1})$. This is an equivalence relation. If there are infinitely many $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy classes for every automorphism $ϕ$ of $G$ we say that $G$ has the $R_\infty$-property. We prove that the generalized Richard Thompson groups $F_n$ and $F(l,A,P)$ have the $R_\infty$-property.
Let $f$ be an automorphism of a group $G$. Two elements $x, y$ in $G$ are said to be in the same $f$-twisted conjugacy class if there exists an element $z$ in $G$ such that $y=z x f(z^{-1})$. This is an equivalence relation known as $f$-twisted conjugacy. If the number $R(f)$ of $f$-twisted conjugacy classes is infinite for every automorphism $f$ of $G$ one says that $G$ has the $R_\infty$-property. We show that the Richard Thompson group $T$ has the $R_\infty$-property.
We show that Brin's generalisations $2V$ and $3V$ of the Thompson-Higman group $V$ are of type $FP_\infty$. Our methods also give a new proof that both groups are finitely presented.
We prove that every finitely-generated right-angled Artin group can be embedded into some Brin-Thompson group $nV$. It follows that many other groups can be embedded into some $nV$ (e.g., any finite extension of any of Haglund and Wise's special groups), and that various decision problems involving subgroups of $nV$ are unsolvable.
This note serves as a short and reader-friendly introduction to twisted Brin-Thompson groups, which were recently constructed by Belk and the author to provide a family of simple groups with a variety of interesting properties. Most notably, twisted Brin-Thompson groups can be used to show that every finitely generated group quasi-isometrically embeds as a subgroup of a finitely generated simple group. Another important application is a concrete construction of a family of simple groups with arbitrary finiteness length. In addition to giving a concise introduction to the groups and these appli…
We generalize the Brin-Higman-Thompson groups $n G_{k,1}$ to monoids $n M_{k,1}$, for $n \ge 1$ and $k \ge 2$, by replacing bijections by partial functions. The monoid $n M_{k,1}$ has $n G_{k,1}$ as its group of units, and is congruence-simple. Moreover, $n M_{k,1}$ is finitely generated, and for $n \ge 2$ its word problem is {\sf coNP}-complete. We also present new results about higher-dimensional joinless codes.
In this short article, we prove that any automorphism of the R. Thompson's group $F$ has infinitely many twisted conjugacy classes. The result follows from the work of Matthew Brin, together with a standard facts on R. Thompson's group $F$, and elementary properties of the Reidemeister numbers.
The higher-dimensional Thompson groups $nV$, for $n \geq 2$, were introduced by Brin in 2005. We provide new presentations for each of these infinite simple groups. The first is an infinite presentation, analogous to the Coxeter presentation for the finite symmetric group, with generating set equal to the set of transpositions in $nV$ and reflecting the self-similar structure of $n$-dimensional Cantor space. We then exploit this infinite presentation to produce further finite presentations that are considerably smaller than those previously known.
We show that the word problem of the Brin-Higman-Thompson group $n G_{k,1}$ is {\sf coNP}-complete for all $n \ge 2$ and all $k \ge 2$. For this we prove that $n G_{k,1}$ is finitely generated, and that $n G_{k,1}$ contains a subgroup of $2 G_{2,1}$ that can represent bijective circuits. We also show that for all $n \ge 1$ and $k \ge 2$: \ If $\,K = 1 + (k-1)\,N\,$ for some $N \ge 1$, then $n G_{K,1} \le n G_{k,1}$. In particular, $n G_{K,1} \le n G_{2,1}$ for all $K \ge 2$.
Let $m, m', r, r',t, t'$ be positive integers with $r, r' \ge 2$. Let $L_r$ denote the ring that is universal with an invertible $1 \times r$ matrix. Let $M_m(L_r^{\otimes t})$ denote the ring of $m \times m$ matrices over the tensor product of $t$ copies of $L_r$. In a natural way, $M_m(L_r^{\otimes t})$ is a partially ordered ring with involution. Let $PU_m(L_r^{\otimes t})$ denote the group of positive unitary elements. We show that $PU_m(L_r^{\otimes t})$ is isomorphic to the Brin-Higman-Thompson group $t V_{r,m}$; the case $t =1$ was found by Pardo, that is, $PU_m(L_r)$ is isomorphic to t…
The Thompson group $V$, as well as the Brin-Thompson group $2V$, is finitely generated and can be defined as a monoid acting on bitstrings, respectively pairs of bitstrings. Therefore evaluation problems can be defined for $V$ and $2V$. We show that these evaluation problems reduce to the corresponding word problems, and that in general, these evaluation problems are actually equivalent to the word problems. The long-input version of the evaluation problem is deterministic context-free and reverse deterministic context-free for $V,$ and P-complete for $2V$.
In his papers [2], [3] Brin introduced the higher dimensional Thompson groups nV which are generalizations to the Thompson's group V of self-homeomorphisms of the Cantor set and found a finite set of generators and relations in the case n = 2. We show how to generalize his construction to obtain a finite presentation for every positive integer n. As a corollary, we obtain another proof that the groups nV are simple (first proved by Brin in [4]).
We prove that the word problem of the Brin-Thompson group nV over a finite generating set is coNP-complete for every n \ge 2. It is known that the groups nV are an infinite family of infinite, finitely presented, simple groups. We also prove that the word problem of the Thompson group V over a certain infinite set of generators, related to boolean circuits, is coNP-complete.
We prove that the Brin-Thompson groups sV, also called higher dimensional Thompson's groups, are of type F_\infty for all natural numbers s. This result was previously shown for s up to 3, by considering the action of sV on a naturally associated space. Our key step is to retract this space to a subspace sX which is easier to analyze.
The Thompson group V is a subgroup of the homeomorphism group of the Cantor set. Brin defined higher dimensional Thompson groups nV as generalizations of V. We prove that nV has Serre's property FA, for every n. This is a generalization of the corresponding result of Farley, who studied V.
Matthew Brin and Patrick Dehornoy independently discovered a braided version BV of Thompson's group V. In this paper, we discuss some properties of BV that might make the group interesting for group based cryptography. In particular, we show that BV does not admit a non-trivial linear representation.
We describe, through the use of Rubin's theorem, the automorphism groups of the Higman-Thompson groups $G_{n,r}$ as groups of specific homeomorphisms of Cantor spaces $\mathfrak{C}_{n,r}$. This continues a thread of research begun by Brin, and extended later by Brin and Guzmán: to characterise the automorphism groups of the `Chameleon groups of Richard Thompson,' as Brin referred to them in 1996. The work here completes the first stage of that twenty-year-old program, containing (amongst other things) a characterisation of the automorphism group of $V$, which was the `last chameleon.' The home…
We prove that Thompson's groups $F$ and $V$ are the geometry groups of associativity, and of associativity together with commutativity, respectively. We deduce new presentations of $F$ and $V$. These presentations lead to considering a certain subgroup of $V$ and an extension of this subgroup. We prove that the latter are the geometry groups of associativity together with the law $x(yz) = y(xz)$, and of associativity together with a twisted version of this law involving self-distributivity, respectively.
Braided Thompson's groups are finitely presented groups introduced by Brin and Dehornoy which contain the ordinary braid groups $B_n$, the finitary braid group $B_{\infty}$ and Thompson's group $F$ as subgroups. We describe some of the metric properties of braided Thompson's groups and give upper and lower bounds for word length in terms of the number of strands and the number of crossings in the diagrams used to represent elements.
We complete the program begun by Brin and Squier of characterising conjugacy in Thompson's group $F$ using the standard action of $F$ as a group of piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the unit interval.
We solve the twisted conjugacy problem on Thompson's group F. We also exhibit orbit undecidable subgroups of Aut(F), and give a proof that Aut(F) and Aut_+(F) are orbit decidable provided a certain conjecture on Thompson's group T is true. By using general criteria introduced by Bogopolski, Martino and Ventura in [5], we construct a family of free extensions of F where the conjugacy problem is unsolvable. As a byproduct of our techniques, we give a new proof of a result of Bleak-Fel'shtyn-Goncalves in [4] showing that F has property R_\infty, and which can be extended to show that Thompson's g…
In a seminal paper, Brin demonstrates that the outerautomorphism group of Thompson group $T$ is isomorphic to the cyclic group of order two. In this article, building on characterisation of automorphisms of the Higman-Thompson groups $G_{n,r}$ and $T_{n,r}$ as groups of transducers, we give a new proof, automata theoretic in nature, of Brin's result. We also demonstrate that the group of outerautomorphisms of Thompson's group $V = G_{2,1}$ contains an isomorphic copy of Thompson's group $F$. This extends a result of the author demonstrating that whenever $n \ge 3$ and $1 \le r < n$ the outerau…
We describe pure braided versions of Thompson's group F. These groups, $BF$ and $\hat{BF}$, are subgroups of the braided versions of Thompson's group V, introduced by Brin and Dehornoy. Unlike V, elements of F are order-preserving self-maps of the interval and we use pure braids together with elements of F thus preserving order. We define these groups and give normal forms for elements and describe infinite and finite presentations of these groups.
Using a result of Kari and Ollinger, we prove that the torsion problem for elements of the Brin-Thompson group 2V is undecidable. As a result, we show that there does not exist an algorithm to determine whether an element of the rational group R of Grigorchuk, Nekrashevich, and Sushchanskii has finite order. A modification of the construction gives other undecidability results about the dynamics of the action of elements of 2V on Cantor Space. Arzhantseva, Lafont, and Minasyanin prove in 2012 that there exists a finitely presented group with solvable word problem and unsolvable torsion problem…
Let $V_r(Σ)$ be the generalised Thompson group defined as the automorphism group of a valid, bounded, and complete Cantor algebra. We show that that for every $n>0$ there is a $k>n,$ such that there exists a $k$-dimensional $n$-connected simplicial complex $K$ such that $V_r(Σ)$ acts on $K$ with finite stabilisers. We also determine the number of conjugacy classes of finite cyclic subgroups of a given order $m$ in Brin-Thompson groups. We apply our computations to the rationalised Farrell-Jones assembly map in algebraic $K$-theory.
Higher-dimensional Thompson's groups nV are finitely presented groups described by Brin which generalize dyadic self-maps of the unit interval to dyadic self-maps of n-dimensional unit cubes. We describe some of the metric properties of higher-dimensional Thompson's groups. We give descriptions of elements based upon tree-pair diagrams and give upper and lower bounds for word length in terms of the size of the diagrams. Though these upper and lower bounds are somewhat separated, we show that there are elements realizing the lower bounds and that the fraction of elements which are close to the …
We consider generalisations of Thompson's group $V$, denoted $V_r(Σ)$, which also include the groups of Higman, Stein and Brin. We show that, under some mild hypotheses, $V_r(Σ)$ is the full automorphism group of a Cantor-algebra. Under some further minor restrictions, we prove that these groups are of type $\mathrm{F}_\infty$ and that this implies that also centralisers of finite subgroups are of type $\mathrm{F}_\infty$.
We consider generalisations of Thompson's group $V$, denoted by $V_r(Σ)$, which also include the groups of Higman, Stein and Brin. It was shown by the authors in [20] that under some mild conditions these groups and centralisers of their finite subgroups are of type $\mathrm{F}_\infty$. Under more general conditions we show that the groups $V_r(Σ)$ are finitely generated and, under the mild conditions mentioned above, we see that they are finitely presented and give a recipe to find explicit presentations. For the centralisers of finite subgroups we find a suitable infinite presentation and th…
We define a family of groups that generalises Thompson's groups $T$ and $G$ and also those of Higman, Stein and Brin. For groups in this family we descrine centralisers of finite subgroups and show, that for a given finite subgroup $Q$, there are finitely many conjugacy classes of finite subgroups isomorphic to $Q$. We use this to show that whenever defined, the T versions of these groups have a slightly weaker property, quasi-$\underline{\operatorname F}_\infty$, to that of a group possessing a finite type model for the classifying space for proper actions ${\underline{E}}G$ if and only if th…
We present a generalization of the Dehornoy-Brin braided Thompson group $BV_2$ that uses recursive braids. Our new groups are denoted by $BV_{n,r}(H)$, for all $n\geq 2,r\geq 1$ and $H \leq \mathcal{B}_n$, where $\mathcal{B}_n$ is the braid group on $n$ strands. We give a new approach to deal with braided Thompson groups by using strand diagrams. We show that $BV_{n,r}(H)$ is finitely generated if $H$ is finitely generated.
We show that for a large class $\mathcal{C}$ of finitely generated groups of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of the real line, the following holds: Given a group $G$ of rank $k$ in $\mathcal{C}$, there is a sequence of $k$-markings $(G, S_n), n\in \mathbf{N}$ whose limit in the space of marked groups is the free group of rank $k$ with the standard marking. The class we consider consists of groups that admit actions satisfying mild dynamical conditions and a certain "self-similarity" type hypothesis. Examples include Thompson's group $F$, Higman-Thompson groups, Stein-Thompson groups, var…
We will give a general criterion - the existence of an $F$-obstruction - for showing that a subgroup of $\mathrm{PL}_+ I$ does not embed into Thompson's group $F$. An immediate consequence is that Cleary's "golden ratio" group $F_τ$ does not embed into $F$. Our results also yield a new proof that Stein's groups $F_{p,q}$ do not embed into $F$, a result first established by Lodha using his theory of coherent actions. We develop the basic theory of $F$-obstructions and show that they exhibit certain rigidity phenomena of independent interest. In the course of establishing the main result of the …
We say that $x,y\in Γ$ are in the same $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy class and write $x\sim_ϕy$ if there exists an element $γ\in Γ$ such that $y=γxϕ(γ^{-1})$. This is an equivalence relation on $Γ$ called the $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy. Let $R(ϕ)$ denote the number of $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy classes in $Γ$. If $R(ϕ)$ is infinite for all $ϕ\in Aut(Γ)$, we say that $Γ$ has the $R_\infty$-property. The purpose of this note is to show that the symmetric group $S_\infty$, the Houghton groups and the pure symmetric automorphism groups have the $R_\infty$-property. We show, also, that the Richard Thompson group $T$…
We show that for any full and sufficiently transitive (i.e. \textit{flexible}) group $G$ of homeomorphisms of Cantor space, $\mathrm{Aut}(\mathrm{Aut}(G)) = \mathrm{Aut}(G)$. This class contains many generalisations of the Higman-Thompson groups $G_{n,r}$, and the Rational group $\mathcal{R}_{2}$ of Grigorchuk, Nekrashevych, and Suchanski{\u ı}. We also demonstrate that for generalisations $T_{n,r}$ of R. Thompson's group $T$, $\mathrm{Aut}(\mathrm{Aut}(T_{n,r}))= \mathrm{Aut}(T_{n,r})$. In the case of the groups $G_{n,r}$ and $T_{n,r}$ our results extend results of Brin and Guzm{\' a}n for Th…
The group of $\mathcal C^1$-diffeomorphisms of any sparse Cantor subset of a manifold is countable and discrete (possibly trivial). Thompson's groups come out of this construction when we consider central ternary Cantor subsets of an interval. Brin's higher dimensional generalizations $nV$ of Thompson's group $V$ arise when we consider products of central ternary Cantor sets. We derive that the $\mathcal C^2$-smooth mapping class group of a sparse Cantor sphere pair is a discrete countable group and produce this way versions of the braided Thompson groups.
Every finite simple group can be generated by two elements, and Guralnick and Kantor proved that, moreover, every nontrivial element is contained in a generating pair. Groups with this property are said to be $\frac{3}{2}$-generated. Thompson's group $V$ was the first finitely presented infinite simple group to be discovered. The Higman--Thompson groups $V_n$ and the Brin--Thompson groups $mV$ are two families of finitely presented groups that generalise $V$. In this paper, we prove that all of the groups $V_n$, $V_n'$ and $mV$ are $\frac{3}{2}$-generated. As far as the authors are aware, the …
We answer the question by Matt Brin on the structure of diagram groups over semigroup presentation ${\mathcal P}=\langle a,b,c\mid a=bc,b=ca,c=ab\rangle$. In the talk on Oberwolfach workshop, Brin conjectured that the diagram group over $\mathcal P$ with base $a$ is isomorphic to the generalized Thompson's group $F_9$. We confirm this conjecture and consider some generalizations of this fact.
Let n be bigger than 1 and let A be an element in the Higman-Thompson group V_n. We study the structure of the centralizer of a in V_n through a careful analysis of the action of the group generated by A on the Cantor set C. We make use of revealing tree pairs as developed by Brin and Salazar from which we derive discrete train tracks to assist us in our analysis. A consequence of our structure theorem is that centralizers are finitely generated. Along the way we give a short argument using revealing tree pairs which shows that cyclic groups are undistorted in V_n.
We study actions of groups by homeomorphisms on $\mathbf{R}$ (or an interval) that are minimal, have solvable germs at $\pm \infty$ and contain a pair of elements of a certain type. We call such actions coherent. We establish that such an action is rigid, i.e. any two such actions of the same group are topologically conjugate. We also establish that the underlying group is always non elementary amenable, but satisfies that every proper quotient is solvable. As a first application, we demonstrate that any coherent group action $G<Homeo^+(\mathbf{R})$ that produces a nonamenable equivalence rela…
In the quest in constructing conformal field theories (CFT) Jones has discovered a beautiful and deep connection between CFT, Richard Thompson's groups and knot theory. This led to a powerful functorial framework for constructing actions of particular groups arising from categories such as Thompson's groups and braid groups. In particular, given a group and two of its endomorphisms one can construct a semidirect product where the largest Thompson's group $V$ is acting. These semidirect products have remarkable diagrammatic descriptions which were previously used to provide new examples of grou…
We demonstrate the existence of a family of finitely generated subgroups of Richard Thompson's group $F$ which is strictly well-ordered by the embeddability relation in type $ε_0 +1$. All except the maximum element of this family (which is $F$ itself) are elementary amenable groups. In fact we also obtain, for each $α< ε_0$, a finitely generated elementary amenable subgroup of $F$ whose EA-class is $α+ 2$. These groups all have simple, explicit descriptions and can be viewed as a natural continuation of the progression which starts with $\mathbf{Z} + \mathbf{Z}$, $\mathbf{Z} \wr \mathbf{Z}$, a…
The recent paper "The further chameleon groups of Richard Thompson and Graham Higman: automorphisms via dynamics for the Higman groups $G_{n,r}$" of Bleak, Cameron, Maissel, Navas and Olukoya (BCMNO) characterises the automorphisms of the Higman-Thompson groups $G_{n,r}$ as the specific subgroup of the rational group $\mathcal{R}_{n,r}$ of Grigorchuk, Nekrashevych and Suchanski{\u i}'s consisting of those elements which have the additional property of being bi-synchronizing. In this article, we extend the arguments of BCMNO and characterise the automorphism group of $T_{n,r}$ as a subgroup of …
We study two--generated subgroups $\langle f,g\rangle<\mathrm{Homeo}^+(I)$ such that $\langle f^2,g^2\rangle$ is isomorphic to Thompson's group $F$, and such that the supports of $f$ and $g$ form a chain of two intervals. We show that this class contains uncountably many isomorphism types. These include examples with nonabelian free subgroups, examples which do not admit faithful actions by $C^2$ diffeomorphisms on $1$--manifolds, examples which do not admit faithful actions by $PL$ homeomorphisms on an interval, and examples which are not finitely presented. We thus answer questions due to M.…
We prove a variety of results about the group von Neumann algebras associated to Thompson-like groups arising from so called $d$-ary cloning systems. Cloning systems are a framework developed by Witzel and the second author, with a $d$-ary version subsequently developed by Skipper and the second author, which can be used to construct generalizations of the classical Thompson's groups $F$, $T$, and $V$. Given a family of groups $(G_n)_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ with a $d$-ary cloning system, we get a Thompson-like group $\mathscr{T}_d(G_*)$, and in this paper we find some mild, natural conditions under …
A group $G$ is said to have the property $R_\infty$ if every automorphism $ϕ\in {\rm Aut}(G)$ has an infinite number of $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy classes. Recent work of Gonçalves and Kochloukova uses the $Σ^n$ (Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz) invariants to show the $R_{\infty}$ property for a certain class of groups, including the generalized Thompson's groups $F_{n,0}$. In this paper, we make use of the $Ω^n$ invariants, analogous to $Σ^n$, to show $R_{\infty}$ for certain finitely generated groups. In particular, we give an alternate and simpler proof of the $R_{\infty}$ property for BS(1,n). Moreo…
We show a homological result for the class of planar or symmetric operad groups: We show that under certain conditions, group (co)homology of such groups with certain coefficients vanishes in all dimensions, provided it vanishes in dimension $0$. This can be applied for example to $l^2$-homology or cohomology with coefficients in the group ring. As a corollary, we obtain explicit vanishing results for Thompson-like groups such as the Brin-Thompson groups $nV$.
Let $X$ be a set and let $S$ be an inverse semigroup of partial bijections of $X$. Thus, an element of $S$ is a bijection between two subsets of $X$, and the set $S$ is required to be closed under the operations of taking inverses and compositions of functions. We define $Γ_{S}$ to be the set of self-bijections of $X$ in which each $γ\in Γ_{S}$ is expressible as a union of finitely many members of $S$. This set is a group with respect to composition. The groups $Γ_{S}$ form a class containing numerous widely studied groups, such as Thompson's group $V$, the Nekrashevych-Röver groups, Houghton'…
