The congruence subgroup problem for a finitely generated group $Γ$ and $G\leq Aut(Γ)$ asks whether the map $\hat{G}\to Aut(\hatΓ)$ is injective, or more generally, what is its kernel $C\left(G,Γ\right)$? Here $\hat{X}$ denotes the profinite completion of $X$. In the case $G=Aut(Γ)$ we denote $C\left(Γ\right)=C\left(Aut(Γ),Γ\right)$.
Let $Γ$ be a finitely generated group, $\barΓ=Γ/[Γ,Γ]$, and $Γ^{*}=\barΓ/tor(\barΓ)\cong\mathbb{Z}^{(d)}$. Denote $Aut^{*}(Γ)=\textrm{Im}(Aut(Γ)\to Aut(Γ^{*}))\leq GL_{d}(\mathbb{Z})$. In this paper we show that when $Γ$ is nilpotent, there is a canonical isomorphism $C\left(Γ\right)\simeq C(Aut^{*}(Γ),Γ^{*})$. In other words, $C\left(Γ\right)$ is completely determined by the solution to the classical congruence subgroup problem for the arithmetic group $Aut^{*}(Γ)$.
In particular, in the case where $Γ=Ψ_{n,c}$ is a finitely generated free nilpotent group of class $c$ on $n$ elements, we get that $C(Ψ_{n,c})=C(\mathbb{Z}^{(n)})=\{e\}$ whenever $n\geq3$, and $C(Ψ_{2,c})=C(\mathbb{Z}^{(2)})=\hat{F}_ω$ = the free profinite group on countable number of generators.
We characterize those nilpotent algebras of prime power order and finite type in congruence modular varieties that have infinitely many polynomially inequivalent congruence preserving expansions.
We prove that every finite semigroup embeds in a finitely presented congruence-free monoid, and pose some questions around the Boone-Higman Conjecture.
We call a semigroup $S$ f-noetherian if every right congruence of finite index on $S$ is finitely generated. We prove that every finitely generated semigroup is f-noetherian, and investigate whether the properties of being f-noetherian and being finitely generated coincide for various semigroup classes.
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 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.
We describe an algorithm for deciding whether or not a given finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent group is decomposable as the direct product of nontrivial subgroups.
In this paper we study the residual solvability of the generalized free product of finitely generated nilpotent groups. We show that these kinds of structures are often residually solvable.
In the first part, we prove that the dominion (in the sense of Isbell) of a subgroup of a finitely generated nilpotent group is trivial in the category of all nilpotent groups. In the second part, we show that the dominion of a subgroup of a finitely generated nilpotent group of class two is trivial in the category of all metabelian nilpotent groups.
A famous result of Hall asserts that the multiplication and exponentiation in finitely generated torsion free nilpotent groups can be described by rational polynomials. We describe an algorithm to determine such polynomials for all torsion free nilpotent groups of given Hirsch length. We apply this to determine the Hall polynomials for all such groups of Hirsch length at most 7.
If $G$ and $H$ are finitely generated residually nilpotent groups, then $G$ and $H$ are in the same nilpotent genus if they have the same lower central quotients (up to isomorphism). A stronger condition is that $H$ is para-$G$ if there exists a monomorphism of $G$ into $H$ which induces isomorphisms between the corresponding quotients of their lower central series. We first consider residually nilpotent groups and find sufficient conditions on the monomorphism so that $H$ is para-$G.$ We then prove that for certain polycyclic groups, if $H$ is para-$G$, then $G$ and $H$ have the same Hirsch l…
In this paper we study distortion of various well-known embeddings of finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent groups $G$ into unitriangular groups $UT_n(\mathbb{Z})$. We also provide a polynomial time algorithm for finding distortion of a given subgroup of $G$
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.
Two groups are said to have the same nilpotent genus if they have the same nilpotent quotients. We answer four questions of Baumslag concerning nilpotent completions. (i) There exists a pair of finitely generated, residually torsion-free-nilpotent groups of the same nilpotent genus such that one is finitely presented and the other is not. (ii) There exists a pair of finitely presented, residually torsion-free-nilpotent groups of the same nilpotent genus such that one has a solvable conjugacy problem and the other does not. (iii) There exists a pair of finitely generated, residually torsion-fre…
This paper studies effective separability for subgroups of finitely generated nilpotent groups and more broadly effective subgroup separability of finitely generated nilpotent groups. We provide upper and lower bounds that are polynomial with respect to the logarithm of the word length for infinite index subgroups of nilpotent groups. In the case of normal subgroups, we provide an exact computation generalizing work of the second author. We introduce a function that quantifies subgroup separability, and we provide polynomial upper and lower bounds. We finish by demonstrating that our results e…
A nilpotent quotient algorithm for finitely presented Lie rings over Z (LieNQ) is described. The paper studies graded and non-graded cases separately. The algorithm computes the so-called nilpotent presentation for a finitely presented, nilpotent Lie ring. The nilpotent presentation consists of generators for the abelian group and the products---expressed as linear combinations---for pairs formed by generators. Using that presentation the word problem is decidable in $L$. Provided that the Lie ring $L$ is graded, it is possible to determine the canonical presentation for a lower central factor…
The functions $F_{G}(n)$ measures the asymptotic behavior of residual finiteness for a finitely generated group $G$. In previous work \cite{Pengitore_1}, the author claimed a characterization for $F_{N}(n)$ when $N$ is a finitely generated nilpotent group. However, a counterexample to the above claim was communicated to the author, and subsequently, the statement of the asymptotic characterization of $F_{N}(n)$ is incorrect. In this article, we introduce new tools to provide lower asymptotic bounds for $F_{N}(n)$ when $N$ is a finitely generated nilpotent group. Moreover, we introduce a class …
Let $\mathbf{G}$ be a unipotent group scheme defined in terms of a nilpotent Lie lattice over the ring $\mathcal{O}$ of integers of a number field. We consider bivariate zeta functions of groups of the form $\mathbf{G}(\mathcal{O})$ encoding, respectively, the numbers of isomorphism classes of irreducible complex representations of finite dimensions and the numbers of conjugacy classes of congruence quotients of the associated groups. We show that the domains of convergence and meromorphic continuation of these zeta functions of groups $\mathbf{G}(\mathcal{O})$ are independent of the number fi…
The authors extend to the $q-$tensor square $G \otimes^q G$ of a group $G$, $q$ a non-negative integer, some structural results due to R. D. Blyth, F. Fumagalli and M. Morigi concerning the non-abelian tensor square $G \otimes G$ ($q = 0$). The results are applied to the computation of $G \otimes^q G$ for finitely generated nilpotent groups $G$, specially for free nilpotent groups of finite rank. They also generalize to all $q \geq 0$ results of M. Bacon regarding an upper bound to the minimal number of generators of the non-abelian tensor square $G \otimes G$ when $G$ is a $n-$generator nilpo…
In this paper we investigate central congruence of left quasigroups in the sense of Freese and McKenzie \cite{comm} and we extend some known results for quandles. In particular, we can extend the characterization of finite nilpotent latin quandles and the characterization of distributive varieties of quandles to the setting of idempotent left quasigroups.
In the paper we show that any irreducible representation of a finitely generated nilpotent group $G$ over a finitely generated field $F$ of characteristic zero is induced from a primitive representation of some subgroup of $G$.
In this paper, we work on the pro-nilpotent group topology of a free group. First we investigate the closure of the product of finitely many subgroups of a free group in the pro-nilpotent group topology. We present an algorithm for the calculation of the closure in the pro-nilpotent group topology of the product of finitely many finitely generated subgroups of a free group. Then we deduce that the nil-closure of a rational subset is computable. We also prove that the pseudovarieties V malcev G_nil, for every decidable pseudovariety of monoids V, and J * G_nil are decidable.
A combing is a set of normal forms for a finitely generated group. This article investigates the language-theoretic and geometric properties of combings for nilpotent and polycyclic groups. It is shown that a finitely generated class 2 nilpotent group with cyclic commutator subgroup is real-time combable, as are also all 2 or 3-generated class 2 nilpotent groups, and groups in certain families of nilpotent groups, e.g. the finitely generated Heisenberg groups, groups of unipotent matrices over the integers and the free class 2 nilpotent groups. Further it is shown that any polycyclic-by-finite…
We prove that the subgroup zeta function and the normal zeta function of a finitely generated virtually nilpotent group are finite sums of Euler products of cone integrals over $\mathbb{Q}$ and we deduce from this that they have rational abscissa of convergence and some meromorphic continuation. We also define Mal'cev completions of a finitely generated virtually nilpotent group and we prove that the subgroup growth and the normal subgroup growth of the latter are invariants of its $\mathbb{Q}$-Mal'cev completion.
A recipe for obtaining finitely presented abelian-by-nilpotent groups is given. It relies on a geometric procedure that generalizes the construction of finitely presented metabelian groups introduced by R. Bieri and R. Strebel in 1980.
We prove that a subgroup of a finitely generated free nilpotent group F is undistorted if and only if it is a retract of a subgroup of finite index in F.
We prove that the growth rate of an endomorphism of a finitely generated nilpotent group equals to the growth rate of induced endomorphism on its abelinization, generalizing the corresponding result for an automorphism in [14]. We also study growth rates of endomorphisms for specific solvable groups, lattices of Sol, providing a counterexample to a known result in [5] and proving that the growth rate is an algebraic number.
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…
The pro-isomorphic zeta function of a torsion-free finitely generated nilpotent group G enumerates finite index subgroups H such that H and G have isomorphic profinite completions. It admits an Euler product decomposition, indexed by the rational primes. We manufacture the first example of a torsion-free finitely generated nilpotent group G such that the local Euler factors of its pro-isomorphic zeta function do not satisfy functional equations. The group G has nilpotency class 4 and Hirsch length 25. It is obtained, via the Malcev correspondence, from a Z-Lie lattice L with a suitable algebra…
It is well known that any polycyclic group, and hence any finitely generated nilpotent group, can be embedded into $GL_{n}(\mathbb{Z})$ for an appropriate $n\in \mathbb{N}$; that is, each element in the group has a unique matrix representation. An algorithm to determine this embedding was presented in Nickel. In this paper, we determine the complexity of the crux of the algorithm and the dimension of the matrices produced as well as provide a modification of the algorithm presented by Nickel.
This paper has two main parts. In the first part we develop an elementary coordinatization for any nilpotent group $G$ taking exponents in a binomial principal ideal domain (PID) $A$. In case that the additive group $A^+$ of $A$ is finitely generated we prove using a classical result of Julia Robinson that one can obtain a central series for $G$ where the action of the ring of integers $\Z$ on the quotients of each of the consecutive terms of the series except for one very specific gap, called the special gap, is interpretable in $G$. Then we use a refinement of this central series to give a c…
For a torsion free finitely generated nilpotent group G we naturally associate four finite dimensional nilpotent Lie algebras over a field of characteristic zero. We show that if G is a relatively free group of some variery of nilpotent groups then all the above Lie algebras are isomorphic. As a result, any two quasi-isometric relatively free nilpotent groups are isomorphic. Moreover let L be a relatively free nilpotent Lie algebra over Q generated by X. We give L the structure of a group by means of the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula and we show that the subgroup H generated by X is relativ…
In this paper we provide a sufficient condition for a subgroup of a free group not to have the almost congruence extension property (ACEP). We also show that any finitely generated subgroup of a free group satisfies some a generalization of ACEP.
In this paper we consider the palindromic width of free nilpotent groups. In particular, we prove that the palindromic width of a finitely generated free nilpotent group is finite. We also prove that the palindromic width of a free abelian-by-nilpotent group is finite.
We investigate the palindromic width of finitely generated solvable groups. We prove that every finitely generated $3$-step solvable group has finite palindromic width. More generally, we show the finiteness of palindromic width for finitely generated abelian-by-nilpotent-by-nilpotent groups. For arbitrary solvable groups of step $\geq 3$, we prove that if $G$ is a finitely generated solvable group that is an extension of an abelian group by a group satisfying the maximal condition for normal subgroups, then the palindromic width of $G$ is finite. We also prove that the palindromic width of $\…
We give effective proofs of residual finiteness and conjugacy separability for finitely generated nilpotent groups. In particular, we give precise asymptotic bounds for a function introduced by Bou-Rabee that measures how large the quotients that are need to separate non-identity elements of bounded length from the identity which improves the work of Bou-Rabee. Similarly, we give polynomial upper and lower bounds for an analogous function introduced by Lawton, Louder, and McReynolds that measures how large the quotients that are need to separate pairs of distinct conjugacy classes of bounded w…
We obtain sufficient criteria for endomorphisms of torsion-free nilpotent groups of finite rank to be automorphisms, by considering the induced maps on the torsion-free abelianisation and the centre. Whilst these results are known in the finitely generated case removing this assumption introduces several difficulties.
We prove that congruences of the cogrowth sequence in a unitriangular group UT$(m, \Bbb Z)$ are undecidable. This is in contrast with abelian groups, where the congruences of the cogrowth sequence are decidable. As an application, we conclude that there is no algorithm to present the cogrowth series as the diagonal of a rational function.
In this paper we consider the problem of classification of the nilpotent class 2 finitely generated torsion free groups up to the geometric equivalence. By a very easy technique it is proved that this problem is equivalent to the problem of classification of the complete (in the Maltsev sense) nilpotent torsion free finite rank groups up to the isomorphism. This result, allows us to once more comprehend the complication of the problem of the classification of the quasi-varieties of nilpotent class 2 groups. It is well known that the variety of a nilpotent class s (for every s) groups is Noethe…
In recent years, the RFRS condition has been used to analyze virtual fibering in 3-manifold topology. Agol's work shows that any 3-manifold with zero Euler characteristic satisfying the RFRS condition on its fundamental group virtually fibers over the circle. In this note we will show that a finitely generated nilpotent group is either virtually abelian or is not virtually RFRS, a result which may be of independent interest though not directly applicable to 3-manifold topology. As a corollary, we deduce that any RFRS group cannot contain a nonabelian torsion-free nilpotent group. This result a…
We show that, for a finitely generated residually finite group $Γ$, the word $[x_1, \ldots, x_k]$ is a probabilistic identity of $Γ$ if and only if $Γ$ is virtually nilpotent of class less than $k$. Related results, generalizations and problems are also discussed.
We prove that every finitely generated nilpotent group of class c admits a polynomial isoperimetric function of degree c+1 and a linear upper bound on its filling length function.
In this paper, we determine the structure of the nilpotent multipliers of all pairs $(G,N)$ of finitely generated abelian groups where $N$ admits a complement in $G$. Moreover, some inequalities for the nilpotent multipliers of pairs of finite groups and their factor groups are given.
We introduce the concept of quantifying the extent to which a finitely generated group is residually finite. The quantification is carried out for some examples including free groups, the first Grigorchuk group, finitely generated nilpotent groups, and certain arithmetic groups such as $SL_n(\mathbb{Z})$. In the context of finite nilpotent quotients, we find a new characterization of nilpotent groups.
We study finitely generated nilpotent groups $G$ given by full rank finite presentations $\langle A \mid R\rangle$ in the variety $\mathcal{N}_c$ of nilpotent groups of class at most $c$, where $c \geq 2$. We prove that if the deficiency $|A| - |R| $ is at least $2$ then the group $G$ is virtually free nilpotent, it is quasi finitely axiomatizable (in particular, first-order rigid), and it is almost (up to finite factors) directly indecomposable. One of the main results of the paper is that the Diophantine problem in nilpotent groups given by full rank finite presentations $\langle A \mid R\ra…
We prove the pro-supersolvable closure of a finitely generated subgroup of the free group is finitely generated. It extends similar results for pro-$p$ closures proved by Ribes-Zalesskii and pro-Nilpotent closures proved by Margolis-Sapir-Weil.
We prove that for a finitely generated infinite nilpotent group G with a first order structure (G,*,...), the connected component G*0 of a sufficiently saturated extension G* of G exists and equals $\bigcap_{n\in\N} {g^n : g\in G^*}$. We construct a first order expansion of Z by a predicate (Z,+,P) such that the type-connected component Z*00_{\emptyset} is strictly smaller than Z*0. We generalize this to finitely generated virtually solvable groups. As a corollary of our construction we obtain an optimality result for the van der Waerden theorem.
In this article, we study geometric properties of nilpotent groups. We find a geometric criterion for the word problem for the finitely generated free nilpotent groups. By geometric criterion, we mean a way to determine whether two words represent the same element in a free nilpotent group of rank $r$ and class $k$ by analyzing their behavior on the Cayley graph of the free nilpotent group of rank $r$ and class $k-1$.
