We provide lower estimates on the minimal number of generators of the profinite completion of free products of finite groups. In particular, we show that if C_1,...,C_n are finite cyclic groups then there exists a finite group G which is generated by isomorphic copies of C_1,...,C_n and the minimal number of generators of G is n.
We address two questions of Simon Thomas. First, we show that for any n>2 one can find a four generated free subgroup of SLn(Z) which is profinitely dense. More generally, we show that an arithmetic group Γwhich admits the congruence subgroup property, has a profinitely dense free subgroup with an explicit bound of its rank. Next, we show that the set of profinitely dense, locally free subgroups of such an arithmetic group Γis uncountable.
Given a finite group $G$ and an element $g\in G$, we may compare the expected number $e(G)$ of elements needed to generate $G$ and the expected number $e(G,g)$ of elements of $G$ needed to generate $G$ together with $g.$ We address the following question: how large can the difference $e(G)-e(G,g)$ be?
In this expanded account of a talk given at the Oberwolfach Arbeitsgemeinschaft "Totally Disconnected Groups", October 2014, we discuss results of Nikolay Nikolov and Dan Segal on abstract quotients of compact Hausdorff topological groups, paying special attention to the class of finitely generated profinite groups. Our primary source is a paper, entitled "Generators and commutators in finite groups; abstract quotients of compact groups", that was published by Nikolov and Segal in 2012. Sidestepping all difficult and technical proofs, we present a selection of accessible arguments to illuminat…
We study in detail the profinite group G arising as geometric étale iterated monodromy group of an arbitrary quadratic polynomial over a field of characteristic different from two. This is a self-similar closed subgroup of the group of automorphisms of a regular rooted binary tree. (When the base field is \C it is the closure of the finitely generated iterated monodromy group for the usual topology which is also often studied.) Among other things we prove that the conjugacy class and hence the isomorphism class of G depends only on the combinatorial type of the post-critical orbit of the polyn…
We prove that in every finitely generated profinite group, every subgroup of finite index is open; this implies that the topology on such groups is determined by the algebraic structure. This is deduced from the main result about finite groups: let $w$ be a `locally finite' group word and $d\in\mathbb{N}$. Then there exists $f=f(w,d)$ such that in every $d$-generator finite group $G$, every element of the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is equal to a product of $f$ $w$-values. An analogous theorem is proved for commutators; this implies that in every finitely generated profinite group, each term of the…
In this paper we describe the profinite completion of the free solvable group on m generators of solvability length r>1. Then, we show that for m=r=2, the free metabelian group on two generators does not have the Congruence Subgroup Property.
The congruence subgroup problem for a finitely generated group $Γ$ asks whether the map $\hat{Aut\left(Γ\right)}\to Aut(\hatΓ)$ is injective, or more generally, what is its kernel $C\left(Γ\right)$? Here $\hat{X}$ denotes the profinite completion of $X$. It is well known that for finitely generated free abelian groups $C\left(\mathbb{Z}^{n}\right)=\left\{ 1\right\}$ for every $n\geq3$, but $C\left(\mathbb{Z}^{2}\right)=\hat{F}_ω$, where $\hat{F}_ω$ is the free profinite group on countably many generators. Considering $Φ_{n}$, the free metabelian group on $n$ generators, it was also proven that…
We consider pairs of finitely presented, residually finite groups $P\hookrightarrow\G$ for which the induced map of profinite completions $\hat P\to \hat\G$ is an isomorphism. We prove that there is no algorithm that, given an arbitrary such pair, can determine whether or not $P$ is isomorphic to $\G$. We construct pairs for which the conjugacy problem in $\G$ can be solved in quadratic time but the conjugacy problem in $P$ is unsolvable. Let $\mathcal J$ be the class of super-perfect groups that have a compact classifying space and no proper subgroups of finite index. We prove that there does…
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})^…
We prove the following three closely related results. The first is that every finite simple group has a profinite presentation with 2 generators and at most 18 relations. The second is that if G is a finite simple group, F a field and M an FG-module, then the dimension of the second cohomology group of G with coefficients in M is at most 17.5 times the dimension of M. The third result is that we may replace 17.5 by 18.5 as long as M is faithful irreducible G-module. These last two results answer conjectures of Holt.
The congruence subgroup problem for a finitely generated group $Γ$ asks whether $\widehat{Aut\left(Γ\right)}\to Aut(\hatΓ)$ is injective, or more generally, what is its kernel $C\left(Γ\right)$? Here $\hat{X}$ denotes the profinite completion of $X$. In this paper we first give two new short proofs of two known results (for $Γ=F_{2}$ and $Φ_{2}$) and a new result for $Γ=Φ_{3}$: 1. $C\left(F_{2}\right)=\left\{ e\right\}$ when $F_{2}$ is the free group on two generators. 2. $C\left(Φ_{2}\right)=\hat{F}_ω$ when $Φ_{n}$ is the free metabelian group on $n$ generators, and $\hat{F}_ω$ is the free pr…
We study a family of hereditarily just infinite profinite groups obtained by iterated wreath products introduced by J. Wilson in 2010. We find explicit generators for this family in a number of cases using combinatorial methods. We then discuss determination of the lower rank for this family. Finally we examine whether the groups in this family admit a finite profinite presentation.
How many generators and relations does ${\mathrm SL}_n({\mathbb F}_q[t, t^{-1}])$ need? In this paper we exhibit its explicit presentation with $9$ generators and $44$ relations. We investigate presentations of affine Kac-Moody groups over finite fields. Our goal is to derive finite presentations, independent of the field and with as few generators and relations as we can achieve. It turns out that any simply connected affine Kac-Moody group over a finite field has a presentation with at most 11 generators and 70 relations. We describe these presentations explicitly type by type. As a conseque…
In this note we prove that if $G$ is a finitely generated profinite group then the verbal subgroup $G^{q}$ is open. Equivalently in a $d$-generator finite group every product of $q$th powers is a product of $f(d,q)$ $q$th powers.
We study fibers of word maps in finite, profinite, and residually finite groups. Our main result is that, for any word w in the free group on d generators, there exists $ε> 0$ such that if G is a residually finite group with infinitely many non-isomorphic non-abelian upper composition factors, then all fibers of the word map $w\colon G^d \to G$ have Hausdorff dimension at most $d-ε$. We conclude that the profinite completion of a group G as above satisfies no probabilistic identity. It is therefore randomly free; namely, for any d > 0, the probability that d randomly chosen elements freely gen…
In this note we give an alternative proof of a theorem of Linnell and Warhurst that the number of generators d(G) of a polycyclic group G is at most d(\hat G), where d(\hat G) is the number of generators of the profinite completion of G. While not claiming anything new we believe that our argument is much simpler that the original one. Moreover our result gives some sufficient condition when d(G)=d(\hat G) which can be verified quite easily in the case when G is virtually abelian.
Let N be a normal subgroup of a finite group G. We prove that under certain (unavoidable) conditions the subgroup [N,G] is a product of commutators [N,y] (with prescribed values of y from a given set Y) of length bounded by a function of d(G) and |Y| only. This has several applications: 1. A new proof that G^n is closed (and hence open) in any finitely generated profinite group G. 2. A finitely generated abstract quotient of a compact Hausdorff group must be finite. 3. Let G be a topologically finitely generated compact Hausdorff group. Then G has a countably infinite abstract quotient if and …
If a finite group G has a presentation with d generators and r relations, it is well-known that r - d is at least the rank of the Schur multiplier of G; a presentation is called efficient if equality holds. There is an analogous definition for proficient profinite presentations. We show that many perfect groups have proficient presentations. Moreover, we prove that infinitely many alternating groups, symmetric groups and their double covers have proficient presentations
Let $(G_n,X_n)$ be a sequence of finite transitive permutation groups with uniformly bounded number of generators. We prove that the infinitely iterated permutational wreath product $...\wr G_2\wr G_1$ is topologically finitely generated if and only if the profinite abelian group $\prod_{n\geq 1} G_n/G'_n$ is topologically finitely generated. As a corollary, for a finite transitive group $G$ the minimal number of generators of the wreath power $G\wr...\wr G\wr G$ ($n$ times) is bounded if $G$ is perfect, and grows linearly if $G$ is non-perfect. As a by-product we construct a finitely generate…
Let $G$ be a finite $p$-group whose derived subgroup $G'$ can be generated by $2$ elements. If $G'$ is abelian, Guralnick proved that every element of $G'$ is a commutator. In this paper, we prove that the condition that $G'$ should be abelian is not needed. Even more, we prove that every element of $G'$ is a commutator of the form $[x,g]$ for a fixed $x\in G$.
By work of Belyi, the absolute Galois group $G_{\mathbb{Q}}=\mathrm{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}/\mathbb{Q})$ of the field $\mathbb{Q}$ of rational numbers can be embedded into $A=\mathrm{Aut}(\widehat{F_2})$, the automorphism group of the free profinite group $\widehat{F_2}$ on two generators. The image of $G_{\mathbb{Q}}$ lies inside $\widehat{GT}$, the Grothendieck-Teichmüller group. While it is known that every abelian representation of $G_{\mathbb{Q}}$ can be extended to $\widehat{GT}$, Lochak and Schneps put forward the challenge of constructing irreducible non-abelian representations of $…
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 this paper we investigate $C\left(IA(Φ_{n}),Φ_{n}\right)$, where $Φ_{n}$ is a free metabelian group on $n\geq4$ generators, and $IA(Φ_{n})=\ker(Aut(Φ_{n})\to GL_{n}(\mathbb{Z}))$. We show that in this case $C(IA(Φ_{n}),Φ_{n})$ is abelian, but not trivial, and not even finitely generated. This behavior is very different from what happen…
We define a self-map Pal: F_2 --> F_2 of the free group on two generators a, b, using automorphisms of F_2 that form a group isomorphic to the braid group B_3. The map Pal restricts to de Luca's right iterated palindromic closure on the submonoid generated by a, b, and is continuous for the profinite topology on F_2. The values of Pal are palindromes and coincide with the elements g of F_2 such that abg is conjugate to bag.
It is well known that, in general, the set of commutators of a group $G$ may not be a subgroup. Guralnick showed that if $G$ is a finite $p$-group with $p\ge 5$ such that $G'$ is abelian and $3$-generator, then all the elements of the derived subgroup are commutators. In this paper, we extend Guralnick's result by showing that the condition of $G'$ to be abelian is not needed. In this way, we complete the study of this property in finite $p$-groups in terms of the number of generators of the derived subgroup. We will also see that the same result is true when the action of $G$ on $G'$ is unise…
For a prime number $p$ and a free profinite group $S$, let $S^{(n,p)}$ be the $n$th term of its lower $p$-central filtration, and $S^{[n,p]}$ the corresponding quotient. Using tools from the combinatorics of words, we construct a canonical basis of the cohomology group $H^2(S^{[n,p]},\mathbb{Z}/p)$, which we call the Lyndon basis, and use it to obtain structural results on this group. We show a duality between the Lyndon basis and canonical generators of $S^{(n,p)}/S^{(n+1,p)}$. We prove that the cohomology group satisfies shuffle relations, which for small values of $n$ fully describe it.
In this paper we want to apply the notion of product between ultrafilters to answer several questions which arise around the Connes' embedding problem. For instance, we will give a simplification and generalization of a theorem by Radulescu; we will prove that ultraproduct of hyperlinear groups is still hyperlinear and consequently the von Neumann algebra of the free group with uncountable many generators is embeddable into $R^ω$. This follows also from a general construction that allows, starting from an hyperlinear group, to find a family of hyperlinear groups. We will introduce the notion o…
In this paper, we give elementary proofs of the Restricted Burnside Problem and the Hughes Conjecture for finite $p$-groups with Hall's regular power structure property. Moreover, in this setting we determine an explicit bound on the order of a finite $d$-generator $p$-group of fixed exponent. Further applications of $p$-groups with regular power structure are presented. For example, we give a short new proof of an important property of powerful $p$-groups; namely, that the minimal number of generators of a subgroup of such a group $G$ is at most the number needed to generate $G$.
In this paper we obtain significant bounds for the number of maximal subgroups of a given index of a finite group. These results allow us to give new bounds for the number of random generators needed to generate a finite $d$-generated group with high probability.
We establish new characterizations of primitive elements and free factors in free groups, which are based on the distributions they induce on finite groups. For every finite group $G$, a word $w$ in the free group on $k$ generators induces a word map from $G^k$ to $G$. We say that $w$ is measure preserving with respect to $G$ if given uniform distribution on $G^k$, the image of this word map distributes uniformly on $G$. It is easy to see that primitive words (words which belong to some basis of the free group) are measure preserving w.r.t. all finite groups, and several authors have conjectur…
Let F_k be the free group on k generators. A word w \in F_k is called primitive if it belongs to some basis of F_k. We investigate two criteria for primitivity, and consider more generally, subgroups of F_k which are free factors. The first criterion is graph-theoretic and uses Stallings core graphs: given subgroups of finite rank H \le J \le F_k we present a simple procedure to determine whether H is a free factor of J. This yields, in particular, a procedure to determine whether a given element in F_k is primitive. Again let w \in F_k and consider the word map w:G x G x ... x G \to G (from t…