Cannon has given an example of a virtually abelian group and a generating set where the full language of geodesics is not regular. We describe a virtually abelian group and a generating set so that no regular language of geodesics surjects to the group.
We show that the geodesic growth function of any finitely generated virtually abelian group is either polynomial or exponential; and that the geodesic growth series is holonomic, and rational in the polynomial growth case. In addition, we show that the language of geodesics is blind multicounter.
A direct consequence of Gromov's theorem is that if a group has polynomial geodesic growth with respect to some finite generating set then it is virtually nilpotent. However, until now the only examples known were virtually abelian. In this note we furnish an example of a virtually 2-step nilpotent group having polynomial geodesic growth with respect to a certain finite generating set.
Let $G$ be a polycyclic, metabelian or soluble of type (FP)$_{\infty}$ group such that the class $Rat(G)$ of all rational subsets of $G$ is a boolean algebra. Then $G$ is virtually abelian. Every soluble biautomatic group is virtually abelian.
It is well-known that random groups with at least as many relators as generators have vanishing first betti number with high probability. In this paper we extend this question and study maps from few-relators random groups to infinite virtually abelian groups.
When studying subgroups of $Out(F_n)$, one often replaces a given subgroup $H$ with one of its finite index subgroups $H_0$ so that virtual properties of $H$ become actual properties of $H_0$. In many cases, the finite index subgroup is $H_0 = H \cap IA_n(Z/3)$. For which properties is this a good choice? Our main theorem states that being abelian is such a property. Namely, every virtually abelian subgroup of $IA_n(Z/3)$ is abelian.
We prove that a finitely generated group $G$ is virtually free if and only if there exists a generating set for $G$ and $k > 0$ such that all $k$-locally geodesic words with respect to that generating set are geodesic.
We show that any subgroup of a finitely generated virtually abelian group $G$ grows rationally relative to $G$, that the set of right cosets of any subgroup of $G$ grows rationally, and that the set of conjugacy classes of $G$ grows rationally. These results hold regardless of the choice of finite weighted generating set for $G$.
This note records some observations concerning geodesic growth functions. If a nilpotent group is not virtually cyclic then it has exponential geodesic growth with respect to all finite generating sets. On the other hand, if a finitely generated group $G$ has an element whose normal closure is abelian and of finite index, then $G$ has a finite generating set with respect to which the geodesic growth is polynomial (this includes all virtually cyclic groups).
We generalise the notion of a separating intersection of links (SIL) to give necessary and sufficient criteria on the defining graph $Γ$ of a right-angled Coxeter group $W_Γ$ so that its outer automorphism group is large: that is, it contains a finite index subgroup that admits the free group $F_2$ as a quotient. When $Out(W_Γ)$ is not large, we show it is virtually abelian. We also show that the same dichotomy holds for the outer automorphism groups of graph products of finite abelian groups. As a consequence, these groups have property (T) if and only if they are finite, or equivalently $Γ$ …
Let $\mathrm{Mod}(S)$ be the mapping class group of a compact connected orientable surface $S$, possibly with punctures and boundary components, with negative Euler characteristic. We prove that for any infinite virtually abelian subgroup $H$ of $\mathrm{Mod}(S)$, there is a subgroup $H'$ commensurable with $H$ such that the commensurator of $H$ equals the normalizer of $H'$. As a consequence we give, for each $n \geq 2$, an upper bound for the geometric dimension of $\mathrm{Mod}(S)$ for the family of abelian subgroups of rank bounded by $n$. These results generalize work by Juan-Pineda--Truj…
The complexity of a geodesic language has connections to algebraic properties of the group. Gilman, Hermiller, Holt, and Rees show that a finitely generated group is virtually free if and only if its geodesic language is locally excluding for some finite inverse-closed generating set. The existence of such a correspondence and the result of Hermiller, Holt, and Rees that finitely generated abelian groups have piecewise excluding geodesic language for all finite inverse-closed generating sets motivated our work. We show that a finitely generated group with piecewise excluding geodesic language …
Let $Q_m$ be the HNN extension of $\Z/m \times \Z/m$ where the stable letter conjugates the first factor to the second. We explore small presentations of the groups $Γ_{m,n}=Q_m \ast Q_n$. We show that for certain choices of (m,n), for example (2,3), the group $Γ_{m,n}$ has a relation gap unless it admits a presentation with at most 3 defining relations, and we establish restrictions on the possible form of such a presentation. We then associate to each (m,n) a 3-complex with 16 cells. This 3-complex is a counterexample to the D(2) conjecture if $Γ_{m,n}$ has a relation gap.
Let $Γ$ be a finitely generated torsion-free group. We show that the statement of $Γ$ being virtually abelian is equivalent to the statement that the $*$-regular closure of the group ring $\mathbb{C}[Γ]$ in the algebra of (unbounded) operators affiliated to the group von Neumann algebra is a central division algebra. More generally, for any field $k$, it is shown that $k[Γ]$ embeds into a central division algebra in case $Γ$ is virtually abelian. We take advantage of this result in order to develop a criterion for existence of units in the group ring $k[Γ]$. We develop this criterion in the pa…
Let G be a simple non-compact linear connected Lie group and H be a closed non-compact semisimple subgroup. We are interested in finding classes of homogeneous spaces G/H admitting proper actions of discrete non virtually abelian subgroups of G. We develop an algorithm for finding such homogeneous spaces. As a testing example we obtain a list of all non-compact homogeneous spaces G/H admitting proper action of a discrete and non virtually abelian subgroup of G in the case when G has rank at most 8, and H is a maximal proper semisimple subgroup.
Given a discrete group $G$, for any integer $r\geqslant0$ we consider the family of all virtually abelian subgroups of $G$ of rank at most $r$. We give an upper bound for the Bredon cohomological dimension of $G$ for this family for a certain class of groups acting on $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ spaces. This covers the case of Coxeter groups, Right-angled Artin groups, fundamental groups of special cube complexes and graph products of finite groups. Our construction partially answers a question of J.-F. Lafont.
We study finitely generated groups whose word problems are accepted by counter automata. We show that a group has word problem accepted by a blind n-counter automaton in the sense of Greibach if and only if it is virtually free abelian of rank n; this result, which answers a question of Gilman, is in a very precise sense an abelian analogue of the Muller-Schupp theorem. More generally, if G is a virtually abelian group then every group with word problem recognised by a G-automaton is virtually abelian with growth class bounded above by the growth class of G. We consider also other types of cou…
In this short note, we show that a group acting geometrically on a CAT(0) cube complex with virtually abelian hyperplane-stabilisers must decompose virtually as a free product of free abelian groups and surface groups.
We prove that if a linear group $Γ\subset \mathrm{GL}_n(K)$ over a field $K$ of characteristic zero is boundedly generated by semi-simple (diagonalizable) elements then it is virtually solvable. As a consequence, one obtains that infinite $S$-arithmetic subgroups of absolutely almost simple anisotropic algebraic groups over number fields are never boundedly generated. Our proof relies on Laurent's theorem from Diophantine geometry and properties of generic elements.
This paper explores the nature of the solution sets of systems of equations in virtually abelian groups. We view this question from two angles. From a formal language perspective, we prove that the set of solutions to a system of equations forms an EDT0L language, with respect to a natural normal form. Looking at growth, we show that the growth series of the language of solutions is rational. Furthermore, considering the set of solutions as a set of tuples of group elements, we show that it has rational relative growth series with respect to any finite generating set.
We show that any soluble group $G$ of type Bredon-$\FP_{\infty}$ with respect to the family of all virtually cyclic subgroups such that centralizers of infinite order elements are of type $\FP_{\infty}$ must be virtually cyclic. To prove this, we first reduce the problem to the case of polycyclic groups and then we show that a polycyclic-by-finite group with finitely many conjugacy classes of maximal virtually cyclic subgroups is virtually cyclic. Finally we discuss refinements of this result: we only impose the property Bredon-$\FP_n$ for some $n \leq 3$ and restrict to abelian-by-nilpotent, …
A residually finite (profinite) group $G$ is just infinite if every non-trivial (closed) normal subgroup of $G$ is of finite index. This paper considers the problem of determining whether a (closed) subgroup $H$ of a just infinite group is itself just infinite. If $G$ is not virtually abelian, we give a description of the just infinite property for normal subgroups in terms of maximal subgroups. In particular, we show that such a group $G$ is hereditarily just infinite if and only if all maximal subgroups of finite index are just infinite. We also obtain results for certain families of virtual…
A non-plain virtually free group with a strictly 2-geodetic Cayley graph
Research Center in Mathematics and Applications (CIMA)(数学与应用研究中心);Department of Mathematics, School of Sciences and Technology, University of Évora(埃武拉大学理科学院数学系)
Given a probability measure on a finitely generated group, its Martin boundary is a way to compactify the group using the Green's function of the corresponding random walk. We give a complete topological characterization of the Martin boundary of finitely supported random walks on relatively hyperbolic groups with virtually abelian parabolic subgroups. In particular, in the case of nonuniform lattices in the real hyperbolic space H n , we show that the Martin boundary coincides with the CAT (0) boundary of the truncated space, and thus when n = 3, is homeomorphic to the Sierpinski carpet.
For a group $G$, let $\mathcal{F}_{n}$ be the family of all the subgroups of $G$ containing a subgroup isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}^{r}$ for some $r=0,1,2,\dots ,n$ of finite index. Joecken, Lafont and Sánchez Saldaña computed the $\mathcal{F}_1$-dimension of 3-manifold groups. The goal of this article is to compute the $\mathcal{F}_n$-geometric dimension of 3-manifold groups for all $n\geq 2$.
We study the structure of the commensurator of a virtually abelian subgroup $H$ in $G$, where $G$ acts properly on a $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ space $X$. When $X$ is a Hadamard manifold and $H$ is semisimple, we show that the commensurator of $H$ coincides with the normalizer of a finite index subgroup of $H$. When $X$ is a $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ cube complex or a thick Euclidean building and the action of $G$ is cellular, we show that the commensurator of $H$ is an ascending union of normalizers of finite index subgroups of $H$. We explore several special cases where the results can be strengthened and we…
A profinite group G is just infinite if every non-trivial closed normal subgroup of G is of finite index, and hereditarily just infinite if every open subgroup is just infinite. Hereditarily just infinite profinite groups need not be virtually pro-p, as shown in a recent paper of Wilson. The same paper gives a criterion on an inverse system of finite groups that is sufficient to ensure the limit is either virtually abelian or hereditarily just infinite. We give criteria of a similar nature that characterise the just infinite and hereditarily just infinite properties under the assumption that G…
Four geometric conditions on a geodesic metric space, which are stronger variants of classical conditions characterizing hyperbolicity, are proved to be equivalent. In the particular case of the Cayley graph of a finitely generated group, it is shown that they characterize virtually free groups.
Given a finitely generated relatively hyperbolic group $G$, we construct a finite generating set $X$ of $G$ such that $(G,X)$ has the `falsification by fellow traveler property' provided that the parabolic subgroups $\{H_ω\}_{ω\in Ω}$ have this property with respect to the generating sets $\{X\cap H_ω\}_{ω\in Ω}$. This implies that groups hyperbolic relative to virtually abelian subgroups, which include all limit groups and groups acting freely on $\mathbb{R}^n$-trees, or geometrically finite hyperbolic groups, have generating sets for which the language of geodesics is regular, and the comple…
In this article we show that every group with a finite presentation satisfying one or both of the small cancellation conditions $C'(1/6)$ and $C'(1/4)-T(4)$ has the property that the set of all geodesics (over the same generating set) is a star-free regular language. Star-free regularity of the geodesic set is shown to be dependent on the generating set chosen, even for free groups. We also show that the class of groups whose geodesic sets are star-free with respect to some generating set is closed under taking graph (and hence free and direct) products, and includes all virtually abelian grou…
We study the quasi-isometric rigidity of a large family of finitely generated groups that split as graphs of groups with virtually free vertex groups and two-ended edge groups. Let $G$ be a group that is one-ended, hyperbolic relative to virtually abelian subgroups, and has JSJ decomposition over two-ended subgroups containing only virtually free vertex groups that aren't quadratically hanging. Our main result is that any group quasi-isometric to $G$ is abstractly commensurable to $G$. In particular, our result applies to certain "generic" HNN extensions of a free group over cyclic subgroups.
Let $G$ be a finitely generated group. We show that for any finite generating set $A$, the language consisting of all geodesics in $Cay(G,A)$ with a contracting property is a regular language. As an application, we show that any finitely generated group containing an infinite contracting geodesic must be either virtually $\mathbb{Z}$ or acylindrically hyperbolic.
In this article we construct asynchronous and sometimes synchronous automatic structures for amalgamated products and HNN extensions of groups that are strongly asynchronously (or synchronously) coset automatic with respect to the associated automatic subgroups, subject to further geometric conditions. These results are proved in the general context of fundamental groups of graphs of groups. The hypotheses of our closure results are satisfied in a variety of examples such as Artin groups of sufficiently large type, Coxeter groups, virtually abelian groups, and groups that are hyperbolic relati…
A generalized Baumslag-Solitar group (GBS group) is a finitely generated group $G$ which acts on a tree with all edge and vertex stabilizers infinite cyclic. We show that Out(G) either contains non-abelian free groups or is virtually nilpotent of class at most 2. It has torsion only at finitely many primes. One may decide algorithmically whether Out(G) is virtually nilpotent or not. If it is, one may decide whether it is virtually abelian, or finitely generated. The isomorphism problem is solvable among GBS groups with Out(G) virtually nilpotent. If $G$ is unimodular (virtually $F_n \times Z$)…
The article deals with profinite groups in which the centralizers are abelian (CA-groups), that is, with profinite commutativity-transitive groups. It is shown that such groups are virtually pronilpotent. More precisely, let G be a profinite CA-group. It is shown that G has a normal open subgroup N which is either abelian or pro-p. Further, a rather detailed information about the finite quotient G/N is obtained.
Classifying spaces for families of virtually abelian subgroups of surface braid groups
Universidad de Sevilla(塞维利亚大学);Instituto de Matemáticas (IMUS), Universidad de Sevilla(塞维利亚大学数学研究所);Instituto de Matemáticas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México(墨西哥国立自治大学数学研究所)
A hyperbolic conjugacy class in the modular group PSL(2,Z) corresponds to a closed geodesic in the modular orbifold. Some of these geodesics virtually bound immersed surfaces, and some do not; the distinction is related to the polyhedral structure in the unit ball of the stable commutator length norm. We prove the following stability theorem: for every hyperbolic element of the modular group, the product of this element with a sufficiently large power of a parabolic element is represented by a geodesic that virtually bounds an immersed surface.
We show that if a group is not virtually cyclic and is hyperbolic relative to a family of proper subgroups, then it has a hyperbolically embedded subgroup which contains a finitely generated non-abelian free group as a finite index subgroup.
We show, using Wise's equitable sets criterion, that every tubular free by cyclic group acts freely on a CAT(0) cube complex. We also show that these groups have a finite index subgroup satisfying the strongest Tits alternative, which means that every subgroup either surjects a non abelian free group or is torsion free abelian. In particular the Gersten group is the first known group virtually having this property but which is not virtually special nor virtually residually free.