Let G be any finitely generated infinite group. Denote by K(G) the FC-centre of G, i.e., the subgroup of all elements of G whose centralizers are of finite index in G. Let QI(G) denote the group of quasi-isometries of G with respect to word metric. We observe that the natural homomorphism from the group of automorphisms of G to QI(G) is a monomorphism only if K(G) equals the centre Z(G) of G. The converse holds if K(G)=Z(G) is torsion free. We apply this criterion to many interesting classes of groups.
In this article, we determine the automorphism groups of $14$ holomorphic vertex operator algebras of central charge $24$ obtained by applying the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-orbifold construction to the Niemeier lattice vertex operator algebras and lifts of the $-1$-isometries.
We will show that every element of a finitely generated abelian group is automorphically equivalent what we will define to be a {\em representative element} in a {\em repeat-free subgroup}, and for finite abelian groups we can count the number of automorphism classes of elements.
Bumagin-Wise posed the question of whether every countable group can be realised as the outer automorphism group of a finitely generated, residually finite group. We give a partial answer to this problem for recursively presentable groups.
Let G be a right-angled Artin group. We use geometric methods to compute a presentation of the subgroup H of Aut(G) consisting of the automorphisms that send each generator to a conjugate of itself. This generalizes a result of McCool on basis-conjugating automorphisms of free groups.
We show that an automorphism of an arbitrary CAT(0) cube complex either has a fixed point or preserves some combinatorial axis. It follows that when a group contains a distorted cyclic subgroup, it admits no proper action on a discrete space with walls.
Bestvina, Feighn and Handel proved that every subgroup of the outer automorphism group, $\textrm{Out}(F_n)$, of the free group of rank $n$ is either virtually finitely generated abelian or contains a nonabelian free group. In this note we consider the more general situation of the outer automorphism group $\textrm{Out}(G)$ of a finitely generated free-by-finite group $G$. We show that $\textrm{Out}(G)$ is translation discrete and that every subgroup of $\textrm{Out}(G)$ is either virtually finitely generated abelian or contains a nonabelian free group.
We give simple examples of Kazhdan groups with infinite outer automorphism groups. This answers a question of Paulin, independently answered by Ollivier and Wise by completely different methods. As arithmetic lattices in (non-semisimple) Lie groups, our examples are in addition finitely presented. We also use results of Abels about compact presentability of p-adic groups to exhibit a finitely presented non-Hopfian Kazhdan group. This answers a question of Ollivier and Wise.
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.
Let $G$ be a finitely generated group and let $C^*$ denote the group of all central automorphisms of $G$ fixing the center of $G$ elementwise. Azhdari and Malayeri [J. Algebra Appl., {\bf 6}(2011), 1283-1290] gave necessary and sufficient conditions on $G$ such that $C^* \simeq \mathrm{Inn}(G)$. We prove a technical lemma and, as a consequence, obtain a short and easy proof of this result of Azhdari and Malayeri. Subsequently, we also obtain short proofs of some other existing and some new related results.
We demonstrate the quasi-isometry invariance of two important geometric structures for relatively hyperbolic groups: the coned space and the cusped space. As applications, we produce a JSJ-decomposition for relatively hyperbolic groups which is invariant under quasi-isometries and outer automorphisms, as well as a related splitting of the quasi-isometry groups of relatively hyperbolic groups.
This paper introduces a newly developed private key cryptosystem and a public key cryptosystem. In the first one, each letter is encrypted with a different key. Therefore, it is a kind of a one-time pad. The second one is inspired by the ElGamal cryptosystem. Both presented cryptosystems are based on automorphisms of free groups. Given a free group $F$ of finite rank, the automorphism group $Aut(F)$ can be generated by Nielsen transformations, which are the basis of a linear technique to study free groups and general infinite groups. Therefore Nielsen transformations are introduced.
Let $G$ be a group. The orbits of the natural action of $Aut(G)$ on $G$ are called "automorphism orbits" of $G$, and the number of automorphism orbits of $G$ is denoted by $ω(G)$. In this paper we prove that if $G$ is an FC-group with finitely many automorphism orbits, then the derived subgroup $G'$ is finite and $G$ admits a decomposition $G = Tor(G) \times D$, where $Tor(G)$ is the torsion subgroup of $G$ and $D$ is a divisible characteristic subgroup of $Z(G)$. We also show that if $G$ is an infinite FC-group with $ω(G) \leqslant 8$, then either $G$ is soluble or $G \cong A_5 \times H$, whe…
We prove that the isomorphism problem for finitely generated fully residually free groups is decidable. We also show that each finitely generated fully residually free group G has a decomposition that is invariant under automorphisms of G, and obtain a structure theorem for the group of outer automorphisms Out(G).
Given isometric actions by a group G on finitely many δ-hyperbolic metric spaces, we provide a sufficient condition that guarantees the existence of a single element in G that is hyperbolic for each action. As an application we prove a conjecture of Handel and Mosher regarding relatively fully irreducible subgroups and elements in the outer automorphism group of a free group.
In this paper, we show that the abelianization of the kernel of the Magnus representation of the automorphism group of a free group is not finitely generated.
The group of isometries W of a regular rooted tree, and many of its subgroups with branching structure, have groups of automorphisms induced by conjugation in W. This fact has stimulated the computation of the group of automorphisms of such well-known examples as the group G studied by R. Grigorchuk, and the group H studied by N. Gupta and the second author. In this paper, we pursue the larger theme of towers of automorphisms of groups of tree isometries such as G and H. We describe this tower for all groups acting on the binary rooted tree which decompose as infinitely iterated wreath product…
We study groups acting by length-preserving transformations on spaces equipped with asymmetric, partially-defined distance functions. We introduce a natural notion of quasi-isometry for such spaces and exhibit an extension of the Svarc-Milnor Lemma to this setting. Among the most natural examples of these spaces are finitely generated monoids and semigroups and their Cayley and Schutzenberger graphs; we apply our results to show a number of important properties of monoids are quasi-isometry invariants.
It is shown that a group defined by forbidding all patterns of size s+1 that do not appear in a given self-similar group of tree automorphisms is the topological closure of a self-similar, countable, regular branch group, branching over its level s stabilizer. As an application, it is shown that there are no infinite, finitely constrained, topologically finitely generated groups of binary tree automorphisms defined by forbidden patterns of size two.
Let G be a finitely generated relatively hyperbolic group. We show that if no peripheral subgroup of G is hyperbolic relative to a collection of proper subgroups, then the fixed subgroup of every automorphism of G is relatively quasiconvex. It follows that the fixed subgroup is itself relatively hyperbolic with respect to a natural family of peripheral subgroups. If all peripheral subgroups of G are slender (respectively, slender and coherent), our result implies that the fixed subgroup of every automorphism of G is finitely generated (respectively, finitely presented). In particular, this hap…
In universal algebraic geometry the category of the finite generated free algebras of some fixed variety of algebras and the quotient group A/Y are very important. Here A is a group of all automorphisms of this category and Y is a group of all inner automorphisms of this category. In the varieties of all the groups, all the abelian groups (see B. Plotkin and G. Zhitomirski, 2006), all the nilpotent groups of the class no more then n (see A. Tsurkov, 2007) the group A/Y is trivial. B. Plotkin posed a question: "Is there a subvariety of the variety of all the groups, such that the group A/Y in t…
We study fixed point properties of the automorphism group of the universal Coxeter group Aut$(W_n)$. In particular, we prove that whenever Aut$(W_n)$ acts by isometries on complete $d$-dimensional CAT$(0)$ space with $d<\lfloor\frac{n}{2}\rfloor$, then it must fix a point. We also prove that Aut$(W_n)$ does not have Kazhdan's property (T). Further, strong restrictions are obtained on homomorphisms of Aut$(W_n)$ to groups that do not contain a copy of Sym(n).
We show that the outer automorphism groups of graph products of finitely generated abelian groups satisfy the Tits alternative, are residually finite, their so-called Torelli subgroups are finitely generated, and they satisfy a dichotomy between being virtually nilpotent and containing a non-abelian free subgroup that is determined by a graphical condition on the underlying labelled graph. Graph products of finitely generated abelian groups simultaneously generalize right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs) and right-angled Coxter groups (RACGs), providing a common framework for studying these groups.…
The mapping torus of an endomorphism Φof a group G is the HNN-extension G*_G with bonding maps the identity and Φ. We show that a mapping torus of an injective free group endomorphism has the property that its finitely generated subgroups are finitely presented and, moreover, these subgroups are of finite type.
We study permanence results for almost quasi-isometries, the maps arising from the Gromov construction of finitely generated random groups that contain expanders (and hence that are not C*-exact). We show that the image of a sequence of finite graphs of large girth and controlled vertex degrees under an almost quasi-isometry does not have Guoliang Yu's property A. We use this result to broaden the application of Gromov's techniques to sequences of graphs which are not necessarily expanders. Thus, we obtain more examples of finitely generated non-C*-exact groups.
Let G be a group. Two elements x,y are said to be in the same z-class if their centralizers are conjugate in G. Let V be a vector space of dimension n over a field F of characteristic different from 2. Let B be a non-degenerate symmetric, or skew-symmetric, bilinear form on V. Let I(V, B) denote the group of isometries of (V, B). We show that the number of z-classes in I(V, B) is finite when F is perfect and has the property that it has only finitely many field extensions of degree at most n.
We prove two results. (1) There is an absolute constant $D$ such that for any finite quasisimple group $S$, given 2D arbitrary automorphisms of $S$, every element of $S$ is equal to a product of $D$ `twisted commutators' defined by the given automorphisms. (2) Given a natural number $q$, there exist $C=C(q)$ and $M=M(q)$ such that: if $S$ is a finite quasisimple group with $| S/\mathrm{Z}(S)| >C$, $β_{j}$ $ (j=1,...,M)$ are any automorphisms of $S$, and $q_{j}$ $ (j=1,...,M)$ are any divisors of $q$, then there exist inner automorphisms $α_{j}$ of $S$ such that $S=\prod_{1}^{M}[S,(α_{j}β_{j})^…
In this article, we study the outer automorphism group of a group G decomposed as a finite graph of group with finite edge groups and finitely generated vertex groups with at most one end. We show that Out(G) is essentially obtained by taking extensions of relative automorphism groups of vertex groups, groups of Dehn twists and groups of automorphisms of free products. We apply this description and obtain a criterion for Out(G) to be finitely presented, as well as a necessary and sufficient condition for Out(G) to be finite. Consequences for hyperbolic groups are discussed.
In this note we produce examples of outer automorphisms of finitely generated groups which have exotic behaviors in terms of growth of conjugacy classes.
We prove that if G_P is a finitely constrained group of binary rooted tree automorphisms (a group binary tree subshift of finite type) defined by an essential pattern group P of pattern size d, d>1, and if G_P has maximal Hausdorff dimension (equal to 1-1/2^{d-1}), then G_P is not topologically finitely generated. We describe precisely all essential pattern groups P that yield finitely constrained groups with maximal Haudorff dimension. For a given size d, d>1, there are exactly 2^{d-1} such pattern groups and they are all maximal in the group of automorphisms of the finite rooted regular tree…
Given an irreducible non-spherical non-affine (possibly non-proper) building $X$, we give sufficient conditions for a group $G < \Aut(X)$ to admit an infinite-dimensional space of non-trivial quasi-morphisms. The result applies to all irreducible (non-spherical and non-affine) Kac-Moody groups over integral domains. In particular, we obtain finitely presented simple groups of infinite commutator width, thereby answering a question of Valerii G. Bardakov from the Kourovka notebook. Independently of these considerations, we also include a discussion of rank one isometries of proper CAT(0) spaces…
We study properties of automorphisms of graph products of groups. We show that graph product $Γ\mathcal{G}$ has non-trivial pointwise inner automorphisms if and only if some vertex group corresponding to a central vertex has non-trivial pointwise inner automorphisms. We use this result to study residual finiteness of $\mathop{Out}(Γ\mathcal{G})$. We show that if all vertex groups are finitely generated residually finite and the vertex groups corresponding to central vertices satisfy certain technical (yet natural) condition, then $\mathop{Out}(Γ\mathcal{G})$ is residually finite. Finally, we g…
To every automorphism w of an infinite rooted regular binary tree we associate a two variable generating function Φ_w that encodes information on the orbit structure of w. We prove that this is a rational function if w can be described by finitely many recursion relations of a particular form. We show that this condition is satisfied for all elements of the discrete iterated monodromy group Γassociated to a postcritically finite quadratic polynomial over C. For such Γwe also prove that there are only finitely many possibilities for the denominator of Φ_w, and we describe a procedure to determi…
This work continues the study of the properties of finitely constrained groups of binary tree automorphisms in terms of their Hausdorff dimension. We prove that there are exactly $2^{2d-3}$ finitely constrained groups of binary tree automorphisms with pattern size $d$ and having Hausdorff dimension $1 - \frac{2}{2^{d-1}}$. As part of this proof, we describe the finite patterns that can define such groups, which leads to the fact that all finitely constrained groups of nearly maximal Hausdorff dimension have additive portraits. Additionally, we give an upper bound, in terms of the pattern size …
We prove that an automorphism $ϕ:F\to F$ of a finitely generated free group $F$ is hyperbolic in the sense of Gromov if it has no nontrivial periodic conjugacy classes.
We use the Bass--Jiang group for automorphism-induced HNN-extensions to build a framework for the construction of tractable groups with pathological outer automorphism groups. We apply this framework to a strong form of a question of Bumagin--Wise on the outer automorphism groups of finitely presented, residually finite groups.
For each prime p and a monic polynomial f, invertible over p, we define a group G_{p,f} of p-adic automorphisms of the p-ary rooted tree. The groups are modeled after the first Grigorchuk group, which in this setting is the group G_{2,x^2+x+1}. We show that the constructed groups are self-similar, regular branch groups. This enables us to calculate the Hausdorff dimension of their closures, providing concrete examples (not using random methods) of topologically finitely generated closed subgroups of the group of p-adic automorphisms with Hausdorff dimension arbitrarily close to 1. We provide a…
In this note, we announce the first results on quasi-isometric rigidity of non-nilpotent polycyclic groups. In particular, we prove that any group quasi-isometric to the three dimenionsional solvable Lie group Sol is virtually a lattice in Sol. We prove analogous results for groups quasi-isometric to $R \ltimes R^n$ where the semidirect product is defined by a diagonalizable matrix of determinant one with no eigenvalues on the unit circle. Our approach to these problems is to first classify all self quasi-isometries of the solvable Lie group. Our classification of self quasi-isometries for $R …
We show that the compressed word problem in a finitely-generated fully residually free group (F -group) is decidable in polynomial time, and use the result to show that the word problem in the automorphism group of such a group is decidable in polynomial time.
W.H.~Mills has determined, for a finitely generated abelian group $G$, the regular subgroups $N \cong G$ of $S(G)$, the group of permutations on the set $G$, which have the same holomorph of $G$, that is, such that $N_{S(G)}(N) = N_{S(G)}(ρ(G))$, where $ρ$ is the (right) regular representation. We give an alternative approach to Mills' result, which relies on a characterization of the regular subgroups of $N_{S(G)}(ρ(G))$ in terms of commutative ring structures on $G$. We are led to solve, for the case of a finitely generated abelian group $G$, the following problem: given an abelian group $(G…
If F is a finitely generated free group and ϕis an automorphism of F then the mapping torus of ϕadmits a quadratic isoperimetric inequality. This is the third and final paper in a series proving this theorem. The first two were math.GR/0211459 and math.GR/0507589.
The group A_{m} of automophisms of a one-rooted m-ary tree admits a diagonal monomorphism which we denote by x. Let A be an abelian state-closed (or self-similar) subgroup of A_{m}. We prove that the combined diagonal and tree-topological closure A* of A is additively a finitely presented Z_m [[x]]-module where Z_m is the ring of m-adic integers. Moreover, if A* is torsion-free then it is a finitely generated pro-m group. The group A splits over its torsion subgroup. We study in detail the case where A* corresponds to a cyclic Z_m[[x]]-module and when m is a prime number, we show A* to be conj…
The paper is devoted to the study of free objects in the variety of Steiner loops and of the combinatorial structures behind them, focusing on their automorphism groups. We prove that all automorphisms are tame and the automorphism group is not finitely generated if the loop is more than $3$-generated. For the free Steiner loop with $3$ generators we describe the generator elements of the automorphism group and some relations between them.
We prove that the automorphism group of an arbitrary non-abelian free group is complete. It generalizes the result by J.Dyer and E.Formanek (1975) stating the completeness of automorphism group of finitely generated free groups. Using the description of involutions in automorphism groups of free groups (J. Dyer, P. Scott, 1975) we obtain a group-theoretic characterization of inner automorphisms determined by primitive elements in the automorphism group of any non-abelian free group F. It follows that the subgroup Inn(F) is characteristic in Aut(F), and hence the latter one is complete.
An automorphism of a group G is called an IA-automorphism if it induces the identity automorphism on the abelianized group G/G'. Let IA(G) denote the group of all IA-automorphisms of G. We classify all finitely generated nilpotent groups G of class 2 for which IA(G) is isomorphic to Inn(G). In particular, we classify all finite nilpotent groups of class 2 for which each IA-automorphism is inner. As consequences, we give surprisingly very easy proofs of converse of Schur's theorem and also prove some other related results.
Using abelian coverings of Salvetti complexes, embeddings of outer automorphism groups of right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs) into outer automorphism groups of their particular characteristic subgroups are constructed. Virtual embeddings of outer automorphism groups of finitely generated groups having the unique root property into outer automorphism groups of their particular subgroups are also given. These results provide us with rich examples of (virtual) embeddings between outer automorphism groups of RAAGs. Finite subgroups of pure (outer) automorphism groups of RAAGs are also investigated. …
Given a finitely presented group $G$, we wish to explore the conditions under which automorphisms of quotients $G/N$ can be lifted to automorphisms of $G$. We discover that in the case where $N$ is a central subgroup of $G$, the question of lifting can be reduced to solving a certain matrix equation. We then use the techniques developed to show that $Inn(G)$ is not characteristic in $Aut(G)$, where $G$ is a metacyclic group of order $p^n$, $p\neq 2$.
