We prove that every mapping torus of any free group endomorphism is residually finite. We show how to use a not yet published result of E. Hrushovski to extend our result to arbitrary linear groups. The proof uses algebraic self-maps of affine spaces over finite fields. In particular, we prove that when such a map is dominant, the set of its fixed closed scheme points is Zariski dense in the affine space.
We observe that the results of Feighn-Handel and Geoghegan-Mihalik-Sapir-Wise about coherence and Hopficity of mapping tori of injective endomorphisms of free groups extend to non-injective endomorphisms.
We combine a combinatorial idea of Benjamin Weiss and some localization theory of Grothendieck categories to give a short and completely self-contained proof of the following recent result of Hanfeng Li and Bingbing Liang: Given a left Noetherian ring $R$ and a sofic group $G$, the group-ring $R[G]$ is stably finite.
We continue our study of residual properties of mapping tori of free group endomorphisms. In this paper, we prove that each of these groups are virtually residually (finite $p$)-groups for all but finitely many primes$p$. The method involves further studies of polynomial maps over finite fields and $p$-adic completions of number fields.
We present an algorithm which, given any finite presentation of a group as input, will terminate with answer yes if and only if the group is large. We use this to prove that a mapping torus of a finitely generated free group automorphism is large if it contains the integers times the integers as a subgroup of infinite index. We then extend this result to mapping tori of finitely generated free group endomorphisms, as well as showing that such a group is large if it contains a Baumslag-Solitar group of infinite index and has a finite index subgroup with first Betti number at least 2. We also sh…
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 the locally compact abelian groups in the class $\mathfrak E_{<\infty}$, that is, having only continuous endomorphisms of finite topological entropy, and in its subclass $\mathfrak E_0$, that is, having all continuous endomorphisms with vanishing topological entropy. We discuss the reduction of the problem to the case of periodic locally compact abelian groups, and then to locally compact abelian $p$-groups. We show that locally compact abelian $p$-groups of finite rank belong to $\mathfrak E_{<\infty}$, and that those of them that belong to $\mathfrak E_0$ are precisely the ones with…
Let $G$ be a group and let $k$ be a field. Kaplansky's direct finiteness conjecture states that every one-sided unit of the group ring $k[G]$ must be a two-sided unit. In this paper, we establish a geometric direct finiteness theorem for endomorphisms of symbolic algebraic varieties. Whenever $G$ is a sofic group or more generally a surjunctive group, our result implies a generalization of Kaplansky's direct finiteness conjecture for the near ring $R(k, G)$ which is $k[X_g\colon g \in G]$ as a group and which contains naturally $k[G]$ as the subring of homogeneous polynomials of degree one. We…
We formulate and analyze several finiteness conjectures for linear algebraic groups over higher-dimensional fields. In fact, we prove all of these conjectures for algebraic tori as well as in some other situations. This work relies in an essential way on several finiteness results for unramified cohomology.
Let $R(ϕ)$ be the number of $ϕ$-conjugacy (or Reidemeister) classes of an endomorphism $ϕ$ of a group $G$. We prove for several classes of groups (including polycyclic) that the number $R(ϕ)$ is equal to the number of fixed points of the induced map of an appropriate subspace of the unitary dual space $\widehat G$, when $R(ϕ)<\infty$. Applying the result to iterations of $ϕ$ we obtain Gauss congruences for Reidemeister numbers. In contrast with the case of automorphisms, studied previously, we have a plenty of examples having the above finiteness condition, even among groups with $R_\infty$ pr…
We discuss in the context of finite extensions two classical theorems of Takahasi and Howson on subgroups of free groups. We provide bounds for the rank of the intersection of subgroups within classes of groups such as virtually free groups, virtually nilpotent groups or fundamental groups of finite graphs of groups with virtually polycyclic vertex groups and finite edge groups. As an application of our generalization of Takahasi's Theorem, we provide an uniform bound for the rank of the periodic subgroup of any endomorphism of the fundamental group of a given finite graph of groups with finit…
Let $G = O^{p'}(\bar{G}^F)$ be a finite simple group of Lie type defined over a field of characteristic $p$, where $F$ is a Steinberg endomorphism of the ambient simple algebraic group $\bar{G}$. Let $\bar{T}$ be an $F$-stable maximal torus of $\bar{G}$ and set $N = N_G(\bar{T})$. A conjecture due to Vdovin asserts that if $G \not\cong {\rm L}_3(2)$ then $N \cap N^x$ is a $p$-group for some $x \in G$. In this paper, we use a combination of probabilistic and computational methods to calculate the base size for the natural action of $G$ on $G/N$, which allows us to prove a stronger, and suitably…
We describe some of the connections between the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants, the Dwyer-Fried invariants, and the cohomology support loci of a space X. Under suitable hypotheses, the geometric and homological finiteness properties of regular, free abelian covers of X can be expressed in terms of the resonance varieties, extracted from the cohomology ring of X. In general, though, translated components in the characteristic varieties affect the answer. We illustrate this theory in the setting of toric complexes, as well as smooth, complex projective and quasi-projective varieties, with…
We consider expansive group actions on a compact metric space containing a special fixed point denoted by $0$, and endomorphisms of such systems whose forward trajectories are attracted toward $0$. Such endomorphisms are called asymptotically nilpotent, and we study the conditions in which they are nilpotent, that is, map the entire space to $0$ in a finite number of iterations. We show that for a large class of discrete groups, this property of nil-rigidity holds for all expansive actions that satisfy a natural specification-like property and have dense homoclinic points. Our main result in p…
In this paper we continue to study the Reidemeister zeta function. We prove Pólya -- Carlson dichotomy between rationality and a natural boundary for analytic behavior of the Reidemeister zeta function for a large class of automorphisms of Abelian groups. We also study dynamical representation theory zeta functions counting numbers of fixed irreducible representations for iterations of an endomorphism. The rationality and functional equation for these zeta functions are proven for several classes of groups. We find a connection between these zeta functions and the Reidemeister torsions of the …
In this second article, we continue to study classes of groups constructed from a functorial method due to Vaughan Jones. A key observation of the author shows that these groups have remarkable diagrammatic properties that can be used to deduce their properties. Given any group and two of its endomorphisms, we construct a semidirect product. In our first article dedicated to this construction, we classify up to isomorphism all these semidirect products when one of the endomorphisms is trivial and described their automorphism group. In this article we focus on the case where both endomorphisms …
We investigate the relationship between the geometric Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants of a space (or of a group), and the jump loci for homology with coefficients in rank 1 local systems over a field. We give computable upper bounds for the geometric invariants, in terms of the exponential tangent cones to the jump loci over the complex numbers. Under suitable hypotheses, these bounds can be expressed in terms of simpler data, for instance, the resonance varieties associated to the cohomology ring. These techniques yield information on the homological finiteness properties of free abelia…
Let $G$ be a finite group, and $c$ an element of $\mathbb{Z}\cup \{\infty\}$. A subgroup $H$ of $G$ is said to be {\it $c$-nilpotent} if it is nilpotent, and has nilpotency class at most $c$. A subset $X$ of $G$ is said to be {\it non-$c$-nilpotent} if it contains no two elements $x$ and $y$ such that the subgroup $< x,y>$ is $c$-nilpotent. In this paper we study the quantity $ω_c(G)$, defined to be the size of the largest non-$c$-nilpotent subset of $L$. In the case that $L$ is a finite group of Lie type, we identify covers of $L$ by $c$-nilpotent subgroups, and we use these covers to constru…
