Let $G$ be $2$-generated group. The generating graph of $Γ(G)$ is the graph whose vertices are the elements of $G$ and where two vertices $g$ and $h$ are adjacent if $G=\langle g,h\rangle$. This graph encodes the combinatorial structure of the distribution of generating pairs across $G$. In this paper we study several natural graph theoretic properties related to the connectedness of $Γ(G)$ in the case where $G$ is a finite nilpotent group. For example, we prove that if $G$ is nilpotent, then the graph obtained from $Γ(G)$ by removing its isolated vertices is maximally connected and, if $|G| \geq 3$, also Hamiltonian. We pose several questions.
A direct consequence of Gromov's theorem is that if a group has polynomial geodesic growth with respect to some finite generating set then it is virtually nilpotent. However, until now the only examples known were virtually abelian. In this note we furnish an example of a virtually 2-step nilpotent group having polynomial geodesic growth with respect to a certain finite generating set.
For a nilpotent group $G$, let $Ξ(G)$ be the difference between the complement of the generating graph of $G$ and the commuting graph of $G$, with vertices corresponding to central elements of $G$ removed. That is, $Ξ(G)$ has vertex set $G \setminus Z(G)$, with two vertices adjacent if and only if they do not commute and do not generate $G$. Additionally, let $Ξ^+(G)$ be the subgraph of $Ξ(G)$ induced by its non-isolated vertices. We show that if $Ξ(G)$ has an edge, then $Ξ^+(G)$ is connected with diameter $2$ or $3$, with $Ξ(G) = Ξ^+(G)$ in the diameter $3$ case. In the infinite case, our res…
In this paper, we initiate the study of palindromic automorphisms of groups that are free in some variety. More specifically, we define palindromic automorphisms of free nilpotent groups and show that the set of such automorphisms is a group. We find a generating set for the group of palindromic automorphisms of free nilpotent groups of step 2 and 3. In particular, we obtain a generating set for the group of central palindromic automorphisms of these groups. In the end, we determine central palindromic automorphisms of free nilpotent groups of step 3 which satisfy the necessary condition of Br…
We study a three-player variation of the impartial avoidance game introduced by Anderson and Harary. Three players take turns selecting previously-unselected elements of a finite group. The losing player is the one who selects an element that causes the set of jointly-selected elements to be a generating set for the group, with the previous player winning and the remaining player coming in second place. We describe the winning strategy for these games on cyclic, dihedral, and nilpotent groups.
The power graph of a group is the simple graph whose vertices are the group elements and two vertices are adjacent whenever one of them is a positive power of the other. We characterize the finite nilpotent groups whose power graphs have equal vertex connectivity and minimum degree.
Given a 2-generated finite group $G$, the non-generating graph of $G$ has as vertices the elements of $G$ and two vertices are adjacent if and only if they are distinct and do not generate $G$. We consider the graph $Σ(G)$ obtained from the non-generating graph of $G$ by deleting the universal vertices. We prove that if the derived subgroup of $G$ is not nilpotent, then this graph is connected, with diameter at most 5. Moreover we give a complete classification of the finite groups $G$ such that $Σ(G)$ is disconnected.
We study random torsion-free nilpotent groups generated by a pair of random words of length $\ell$ in the standard generating set of $U_n(\mathbb{Z})$. Specifically, we give asymptotic results about the step properties of the group when the lengths of the generating words are functions of $n$. We show that the threshold function for asymptotic abelianness is $\ell = c \sqrt{n}$, for which the probability approaches $e^{-2c^2}$, and also that the threshold function for having full-step, the same step as $U_n(\mathbb{Z})$, is between $c n^2$ and $c n^3$.
The enhanced power graph of a finite group $G$, denoted by $\mathcal{P}_E(G)$, is the simple undirected graph whose vertex set is $G$ and two distinct vertices $x, y$ are adjacent if $x, y \in \langle z \rangle$ for some $z \in G$. In this article, we determine all finite groups such that the minimum degree and the vertex connectivity of $\mathcal{P}_E(G)$ are equal. Also, we classify all groups whose (proper) enhanced power graphs are strongly regular. Further, the vertex connectivity of the enhanced power graphs associated to some nilpotent groups is obtained. Finally, we obtain a lower boun…
We prove that the nilpotent product of a set of groups $A_{1},\dots, A_{s}$ has finite palindromic width if and only if the palindromic widths of $A_{i}, i=1,\dots, s,$ are finite. We give a new proof that the commutator width of $F_n \wr K$ is infinite, where $F_n$ is a free group of rank $n \geq 2$ and $K$ a finite group. This result, combining with a result of Fink \cite{f1} gives examples of groups with infinite commutator width but finite palindromic width with respect to some generating set.
We study the speed of convergence to the asymptotic cone for Cayley graphs of nilpotent groups. Burago showed that $\{(\mathbb{Z}^d, \frac{1}{n} ρ,id)\}_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ converges to $(\mathbb{R}^d,d_{\infty},id)$ and its speed is $O(\frac{1}{n})$ in the sense of Gromov-Hausdorff distance. Later Breuillard and Le Donne gave estimates for non-abelian cases, and constructed an example whose speed of convergence is slower than $O(\frac{1}{\sqrt{n}})$. For $2$-step nilpotent groups, we show that if the Mal'cev completion is non-singular, then the speed of convergence is $O(\frac{1}{n})$ for any c…
It is well known that the automorphism group of a regular dessin is a two-generator finite group, and the isomorphism classes of regular dessins with automorphism groups isomorphic to a given finite group $G$ are in one-to-one correspondence with the orbits of the action of $\Aut(G)$ on the ordered generating pairs of $G$. If there is only one orbit, then up to isomorphism the regular dessin is uniquely determined by the group $G$ and it is called uniquely regular. In the paper we investigate the classification of uniquely regular dessins with a nilpotent automorphism group. The problem is red…
The pro-isomorphic zeta function of a finitely generated nilpotent group $Γ$ is a Dirichlet generating function that enumerates finite-index subgroups whose profinite completion is isomorphic to that of $Γ$. Such zeta functions can be expressed as Euler products of $p$-adic integrals over the $p$-adic points of an algebraic automorphism group associated to $Γ$. In this way they are closely related to classical zeta functions of algebraic groups over local fields. We describe the algebraic automorphism groups for a natural family of class-$2$ nilpotent groups; these groups can be viewed as gene…
The intersection graph of a group $G$ is an undirected graph without loops and multiple edges defined as follows: the vertex set is the set of all proper non-trivial subgroups of $G$, and there is an edge between two distinct vertices $H$ and $K$ if and only if $H\cap K \neq 1$ where $1$ denotes the trivial subgroup of $G$. In this paper, we classify finite solvable groups whose intersection graphs are not $2$-connected and finite nilpotent groups whose intersection graphs are not $3$-connected. Our methods are elementary.
Let $G$ be a group. A subset $D$ of $G$ is a determining set of $G$, if every automorphism of $G$ is uniquely determined by its action on $D$. The determining number of $G$, denoted by $α(G)$, is the cardinality of a smallest determining set. A generating set of $G$ is a subset such that every element of $G$ can be expressed as the combination, under the group operation, of finitely many elements of the subset and their inverses. The cardinality of a smallest generating set of $G$, denoted by $γ(G)$, is called the generating number of $G$. A group $G$ is called a DEG-group if $α(G)=γ(G)$. The …
Let S be a finite generating set of a torsion-free, nilpotent group G. We show that every automorphism of the Cayley graph Cay(G;S) is affine. (That is, every automorphism of the graph is obtained by composing a group automorphism with multiplication by an element of the group.) More generally, we show that if Cay(G;S) and Cay(G';S') are connected Cayley graphs of finite valency on two nilpotent groups G and G', then every isomorphism from Cay(G;S) to Cay(G';S') factors through to a well-defined affine map from G/N to G'/N', where N and N' are the torsion subgroups of G and G', respectively. F…
Let $G$ be a $2$-generated group. The generating graph $Γ(G)$ is the graph whose vertices are the elements of $G$ and where two vertices $g_1$ and $g_2$ are adjacent if $G = \langle g_1, g_2 \rangle.$ This graph encodes the combinatorial structure of the distribution of generating pairs across $G.$ In this paper we study some graph theoretic properties of $Γ(G)$, with particular emphasis on those properties that can be formulated in terms of forbidden induced subgraphs. In particular we investigate when the generating graph $Γ(G)$ is a cograph (giving a complete description when $G$ is soluble…
Let $G$ be a finite 2-generated soluble group and suppose that $\langle a_1,b_1\rangle=\langle a_2,b_2\rangle=G$. If either $G^\prime$ is of odd order or $G^\prime$ is nilpotent, then there exists $b \in G$ with $\langle a_1,b\rangle=\langle a_2,b\rangle=G.$ We construct a soluble 2-generated group $G$ of order $2^{10}\cdot 3^2$ for which the previous result does not hold. However a weaker result is true for every finite soluble group: if $\langle a_1,b_1\rangle=\langle a_2,b_2\rangle=G$, then there exist $c_1, c_2$ such that $\langle a_1, c_1\rangle = \langle c_1, c_2\rangle =\langle c_2, a_2…
The Andrews-Curtis conjecture asserts that, for a free group $F_n$ of rank $n$ and a free basis $(x_1,...,x_n)$, any normally generating tuple $(y_1,...,y_n)$ is Andrews-Curtis equivalent to $(x_1,...,x_n)$. This equivalence corresponds to the actions of $\operatorname{Aut}F_n$ and of $F_n$ on normally generating $n$-tuples. The equivalence corresponding to the action of $\operatorname{Aut}F_n$ on generating $n$-tuples is called Nielsen equivalence. The conjecture for arbitrary finitely generated group has its own importance to analyse potential counter-examples to the original conjecture. We …
Assume that $G$ is a finite group. For every $a, b \in\mathbb N,$ we define a graph $Γ_{a,b}(G)$ whose vertices correspond to the elements of $G^a\cup G^b$ and in which two tuples $(x_1,\dots,x_a)$ and $(y_1,\dots,y_b)$ are adjacent if and only if $\langle x_1,\dots,x_a,y_1,\dots,y_b \rangle =G.$ We study several properties of these graphs (isolated vertices, loops, connectivity, diameter of the connected components) and we investigate the relations between their properties and the group structure, with the aim of understanding which information about $G$ are encoded by these graphs.
So far, it has been proven that if $G$ is an abelian group , then the diameter of $G^n$ with respect to any generating set is $O(n)$; and if $G$ is nilpotent, symmetric or dihedral, then there exists a generating set of minimum size, for which the diameter of $G^n$ is $O(n)$ \cite{Karimi:2017}. In \cite{Dona:2022} it has been proven that if $G$ is a non-abelian simple group, then the diameter of $G^n$ with respect to any generating set is $O(n^3)$. In this paper we estimate the diameter of direct power of alternating groups $A_n$ for $n \geq 4$, i.e. a class of non-abelian simple groups. We sh…
Feit and Fine derived a generating function for the number of ordered pairs of commuting n by n matrices over the finite field F_q. This has been reproved and studied by Bryan and Morrison from the viewpoint of motivic Donaldson-Thomas theory. In this note we give a new proof of the Feit-Fine result, and generalize it to the Lie algebra of finite unitary groups and to the Lie algebra of odd characteristic finite symplectic groups. We extract some asymptotic information from these generating functions. Finally, we derive generating functions for the number of commuting nilpotent elements for th…
We show that an arbitrary nilprogression can be approximated by a proper coset nilprogression in upper-triangular form. This can be thought of as a nilpotent version of the Freiman-Bilu result that a generalised arithmetic progression can be efficiently contained in a proper generalised arithmetic progression, and indeed an important ingredient in the proof is a Lie-algebra version of the geometry-of-numbers argument at the centre of that result. We also present some applications. We verify a conjecture of Benjamini that if $S$ is a symmetric generating set for a group such that $1\in S$ and $…
