Small cancellation groups form an interesting class with many desirable properties. It is a well-known fact that small cancellation groups are generic; however, all previously known results of their genericity are asymptotic and provide no information about "small" group presentations. In this note, we give closed-form formulas for both lower and upper bounds on the density of small cancellation presentations, and compare our results with experimental data.
We generalize the small cancellation theory over hyperbolic groups developed by Olshanskii to the case of relatively hyperbolic groups. This allows us to construct infinite finitely generated groups with exactly $n$ conjugacy classes for every $n\ge 2$. In particular, we give the affirmative answer to the well--known question of the existence of a finitely generated group $G$ other than $\mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z$ such that all nontrivial elements of $G$ are conjugate.
Given a group acting cellularly and cocompactly on a simply-connected 2-complex, we provide a criterion establishing that all finitely generated subgroups have quasiconvex orbits. This work generalizes the "perimeter method". As an application, we show that high-powered one-relator products $A \ast B / \nclose{r^n}$ are coherent if $A$ and $B$ are coherent.
We prove the Haagerup property (= Gromov's a-T-menability) for finitely generated groups defined by infinite presentations satisfying the graphical C'(lambda)-small cancellation condition with respect to graphs endowed with a compatible wall structure. We deduce that these groups are coarsely embeddable into a Hilbert space and that the strong Baum-Connes conjecture and, hence, the Baum-Connes conjecture with arbitrary coefficients hold for them. As the main step we show that C'(lambda)-complexes satisfy the linear separation property. Our result provides many new examples and a general techni…
We prove that infinitely presented graphical $Gr(7)$ small cancellation groups are acylindrically hyperbolic. In particular, infinitely presented classical $C(7)$-groups and, hence, classical $C'(\frac{1}{6})$-groups are acylindrically hyperbolic. We also prove the analogous statements for the larger class of graphical small cancellation presentations over free products. We construct infinitely presented classical $C'(\frac{1}{6})$-groups that provide new examples of divergence functions of groups.
We construct small cancellation labellings for some infinite sequences of finite graphs of bounded degree. We use them to define infinite graphical small cancellation presentations of groups. This technique allows us to provide examples of groups with exotic properties: - We construct the first examples of finitely generated coarsely non-amenable groups (that is, groups without Guoliang Yu's Property A) that are coarsely embeddable into a Hilbert space. Moreover, our groups act properly on CAT(0) cubical complexes. - We construct the first examples of finitely generated groups, with expanders …
We combine classical methods of combinatorial group theory with the theory of small cancellations over relatively hyperbolic groups to construct finitely generated torsion-free groups that have only finitely many classes of conjugate elements. Moreover, we present several results concerning embeddings into such groups. As another application of these techniques, we prove that every countable group $C$ can be realized as a group of outer automorphisms of a group $N$, where $N$ is a finitely generated group having Kazhdan's property (T) and containing exactly two conjugacy classes.
In the first part of this note, we introduce Tietze transformations for $L$-presentations. These transformations enable us to generalize Tietze's theorem for finitely presented groups to invariantly finitely $L$-presented groups. Moreover, they allow us to prove that `being invariantly finitely $L$-presented' is an abstract property of a group which does not depend on the generating set. In the second part of this note, we consider finitely generated normal subgroups of finitely presented groups. Benli proved that a finitely generated normal subgroup of a finitely presented group is invariantl…
We prove a variant of the well-known Reidemeister-Schreier theorem for finitely $L$-presented groups. More precisely, we prove that each finite index subgroup of a finitely $L$-presented group is itself finitely $L$-presented. Our proof is constructive and it yields a finite $L$-presentation for the subgroup. We further study conditions on a finite index subgroup of an invariantly finitely $L$-presented group to be invariantly $L$-presented itself.
We prove that the free product of two finitely presented locally tame groups is locally tame and describe many examples of tame subgroups of finitely presented groups. We also include some open problems related to tame subgroups.
We use the interplay between combinatorial and coarse geometric versions of negative curvature to investigate the geometry of infinitely presented graphical $Gr'(1/6)$ small cancellation groups. In particular, we characterize their 'contracting geodesics', which should be thought of as the geodesics that behave hyperbolically. We show that every degree of contraction can be achieved by a geodesic in a finitely generated group. We construct the first example of a finitely generated group $G$ containing an element $g$ that is strongly contracting with respect to one finite generating set of $G$ …
The goal of this article is to study results and examples concerning finitely presented covers of finitely generated amenable groups. We collect examples of groups $G$ with the following properties: (i) $G$ is finitely generated, (ii) $G$ is amenable, e.g. of intermediate growth, (iii) any finitely presented group $E$ with a quotient isomorphic to $G$ contains non-abelian free subgroups, or the stronger (iii') any finitely presented group with a quotient isomorphic to $G$ is large.
We construct an embedding of a free Burnside group $B(m,n)$ of odd $n > 2^{48}$ and rank $m >1$ in a finitely presented group with some special properties. The main application of this embedding is an easy construction of finitely presented non-amenable groups without noncyclic free subgroups (which provides a finitely presented counterexample to the von Neumann problem on amenable groups). As another application, we construct weakly finitely presented groups of odd exponent $n \gg 1$ which are not locally finite.
Using small cancellation methods, we show that the property invariable generation does not pass to finite index subgroups, answering questions of Wiegold and Kantor-Lubotzky-Shalev. We further show that a finitely generated group that is invariably generated is not necessarily finitely invariably generated, answering a question of Cox. The same results were also obtained independently by Minasyan.
We prove that every finite semigroup embeds in a finitely presented congruence-free monoid, and pose some questions around the Boone-Higman Conjecture.
We characterize which permutational wreath products W^(X)\rtimes G are finitely presented. This occurs if and only if G and W are finitely presented, G acts on X with finitely generated stabilizers, and with finitely many orbits on the cartesian square X^2. On the one hand, this extends a result of G. Baumslag about standard wreath products; on the other hand, this provides nontrivial examples of finitely presented groups. For instance, we obtain two quasi-isometric finitely presented groups, one of which is torsion-free and the other has an infinite torsion subgroup. Motivated by the characte…
We construct the first example of a finitely-presented, residually-finite group that contains an infinite sequence of non-isomorphic finitely-presented subgroups such that each of the inclusion maps induces an isomorphism of profinite completions.
We prove that torsion in the abelianizations of open normal subgroups in finitely presented pro-$p$ groups can grow arbitrarily fast. By way of contrast in $\mathbb Z_p$- analytic groups the torsion growth is at most polynomial.
We show that every finitely generated nilpotent group of class 2 occurs as the quotient of a finitely presented abelian-by-nilpotent group by its largest nilpotent normal subgroup.
We design an algorithm to find certain partial permutation representations of a finitely presented group $G$ (the bricks) that may be combined to a transitive permutation representation of $G$ (the mosaic) on the disjoint union.
We generalize Gruber--Sisto's construction of the coned--off graph of a small cancellation group to build a partially ordered set $\mathcal{TC}$ of cobounded actions of a given small cancellation group whose smallest element is the action on the Gruber--Sisto coned--off graph. In almost all cases $\mathcal{TC}$ is incredibly rich: it has a largest element if and only if it has exactly 1 element, and given any two distinct comparable actions $[G\curvearrowright X] \preceq [G\curvearrowright Y]$ in this poset, there is an embeddeding $ι:P(ω)\to\mathcal{TC}$ such that $ι(\emptyset)=[G\curvearrowr…
We construct easy embeddings of relatively free groups (say the free Burnside group, the free solvable group) into finitely presented groups. We introduce a concept of verbal isoperimetric function of a group variety. We prove that if the verbal Dehn function of a relatively free group is bounded by a polynomial then the group can be embedded quasi-isometrically into a finitely presented group with polynomial isoperimetric function. We also construct an easy embedding of any Baumslag-Solitar solvable group into a finitely presented group with polynomial Dehn function.
We construct families of finitely presented groups exhibiting new divergence behavior; we obtain divergence functions of the form $r^α$ for a dense set of exponents $α\in [2,\infty)$ and $r^n\log(r)$ for integers $n \geq 2$. The same construction also yields examples of finitely presented groups which contain Morse elements that are not contracting.
Let $m\geq 3$ be a positive integer. We prove that there are uncountably many non-commensurable metabelian uniform pro-$p$ groups of dimension $m$. Consequently, there are uncountably many non-commensurable finitely presented pro-$p$ groups with minimal number of generators $m$ (and minimal number of relations $ {m \choose 2}$).
For all sufficiently large odd integers $n$, the following version of Higman's embedding theorem is proved in the variety ${\cal B}_n$ of all groups satisfying the identity $x^n=1$. A finitely generated group $G$ from ${\cal B}_n$ has a presentation $G=\langle A\mid R\rangle$ with a finite set of generators $A$ and a recursively enumerable set $R$ of defining relations if and only if it is a subgroup of a group $H$ finitely presented in the variety ${\cal B}_n$. It follows that there is a 'universal' $2$-generated finitely presented in ${\cal B}_n$ group containing isomorphic copies of all fin…
Let $L$ be a free Lie algebra over a field $k$, $I$ a non-trivial proper ideal of $L$, $n>1$ an integer. The multiplicator $H_2(L/I^n,k)$ of $L/I^n$ is not finitely generated, and so in particular, $L/I^n$ is not finitely presented, even when $L/I$ is finite dimensional.
A group $G$ given by a presentation $G = < \mathcal A \| \mathcal R >$ is called weakly finitely presented if every finitely generated subgroup of $G$, generated by (images of) some words in $\mathcal A^{\pm 1}$, is naturally isomorphic to the subgroup of a group $G_0 = < \mathcal A_0 \| \mathcal R_0>$, where $\mathcal A_0 \subseteq \mathcal A$, $\mathcal R_0 \subseteq \mathcal R$ are finite, generated by (images of) the same words. In the article, weakly finitely presented periodic groups which are not locally finite are constructed.
Brady proved that there are hyperbolic groups with finitely presented subgroups that are not of type $FP_3$ (and hence not hyperbolic). We reprove Brady's theorem by presenting a new construction. Our construction uses Bestvina-Brady Morse theory, but does not involve branched coverings.
We establish a general criterion for the finite presentability of subdirect products of groups and use this to characterize finitely presented residually free groups. We prove that, for all $n\in\mathbb{N}$, a residually free group is of type ${\rm{FP}}_n$ if and only if it is of type ${\rm{F}}_n$. New families of subdirect products of free groups are constructed, including the first examples of finitely presented subgroups that are neither ${\rm{FP}}_\infty$ nor of Stallings-Bieri type. The template for these examples leads to a more constructive characterization of finitely presented residua…
Computer based techniques for recognizing finitely presented groups are quite powerful. Tools available for this purpose are outlined. They are available both in stand-alone programs and in more comprehensive systems. A general computational approach for investigating finitely presented groups by way of quotients and subgroups is described and examples are presented. The techniques can provide detailed information about group structure. Under suitable circumstances a finitely presented group can be shown to be soluble and its complete derived series can be determined, using what is in effect a…
In this paper, we compute an upper bound for the Dehn function of a finitely presented metabelian group. In addition, we prove that the same upper bound works for the relative Dehn function of a finitely generated metabelian group. We also show that every wreath product of a free abelian group of finite rank with a finitely generated abelian group can be embedded into a metabelian group with exponential Dehn function.
There has been substantial investigation in recent years of subdirect products of limit groups and their finite presentability and homological finiteness properties. To contrast the results obtained for limit groups, Baumslag, Bridson, Holt and Miller investigated subdirect products (fibre products) of finitely presented metabelian groups. They showed that, in contrast to the case for limit groups, such subdirect products could have diverse behaviour with respect to finite presentability. We show that, in a sense that can be made precise, `most' subdirect products of a finite set of finitely p…
The aim of this note is to give an easy example of a finitely presented group that cannot act without a fix point on a CAT(0) space of finite dimension. Such an example has been recently constructed by Arjantseva et al., using other techniques
We prove that monoids $\mathrm{Mon}\langle a,b,c,d : a^nb=0, ac=1, db=1, dc=1, dab=1, da^2b=1, \ldots, da^{n-1}b=1\rangle$ are congruence-free for all $n\geq 1$. This provides a new countable family of finitely presented congruence-free monoids, bringing one step closer to understanding the Boone--Higman Conjecture. We also provide examples which show that finitely presented congruence-free monoids may have quadratic Dehn function.
For a finitely generated group $G$, let $H(G)$ denote Bowditch's taut loop length spectrum. We prove that if $G=(A\ast B) / \langle\!\langle \mathcal R \rangle\!\rangle $ is a $C'(1/12)$ small cancellation quotient of a the free product of finitely generated groups, then $H(G)$ is equivalent to $H(A) \cup H(B)$. We use this result together with bounds for cohomological and geometric dimensions, as well as Bowditch's construction of continuously many non-quasi-isometric $C'(1/6)$ small cancellation $2$-generated groups to obtain our main result: Let $\mathcal{G}$ denote the class of finitely ge…
Wreath products such as Z wr Z are not finitely-presentable yet can occur as subgroups of finitely presented groups. Here we compute the distortion of Z wr Z as a subgroup of Thompson's group F and as a subgroup of Baumslag's metabelian group G. We find that Z wr Z is undistorted in F but is at least exponentially distorted in G.
The isoperimeric spectrum consists of all real positive numbers $α$ such that $O(n^α)$ is the Dehn function of a finitely presented group. In this note we show how a recent result of Olshanskii completes the description of the isoperimetric spectrum modulo the celebrated Computer Science conjecture (and one of the seven Millennium Problems) $\mathbf{P=NP}$ and even a formally weaker conjecture.
We construct new examples of CAT(0) groups containing non finitely presented subgroups that are of type $FP_2$, these CAT(0) groups do not contain copies of $\mathbb{Z}^3$. We also give a construction of groups which are of type $F_n$ but not $F_{n+1}$ with no free abelian subgroups of rank greater than $\lceil\frac{n}{3}\rceil$.
In this paper we prove that the profinite completion $\mathcal{\hat G}$ of the Grigorchuk group $\mathcal{G}$ is not finitely presented as a profinite group. We obtain this result by showing that $H^2(\mathcal{\hat G},\field{F}_2)$ is infinite dimensional. Also several results are proven about the finite quotients $\mathcal{G}/ St_{\mathcal{G}}(n)$ including minimal presentations and Schur Multipliers.
This is the first of a three parts paper providing full details for our previous announcement in Prépublications Orsay 2007-16, arXiv:0711.3579. Here we prove the results stated in the title.
We describe a general technique for embedding certain amalgamated products into direct products. This technique provides us with a way of constructing a host of finitely presented subgroups of automatic groups which are not even asynchronously automatic. We can also arrange that such subgroups satisfy, at best, an exponential isoperimetric inequality.
We construct families of $CAT(0)$ groups containing finitely presented groups whose divergence functions are of the form $r^α$ for a dense set of exponents $α\in [2,\infty)$ and $r^q\log(r)$ for integers $q \geq 2$. The same construction also yields examples of $CAT(0)$ groups containing contracting elements which are not contracting in certain finitely presented subgroups.
