Local–global invariants of finite and infinite groups: Around Burnside from another side

This expository essay is focused on the Shafarevich–Tate set of a group G$G$. Since its introduction for a finite group by Burnside, it has been rediscovered and redefined more than once. We discuss its various incarnations and properties as well as relationships (some of them conjectural) with other local–global invariants of groups.     

Permutation representations of left quasigroups

The concept of a permutation representation has recently been extended from groups to quasigroups. Following a suggestion of Walter Taylor, the concept is now further extended to left quasigroups. The paper surveys the current state of the theory, giving new proofs where necessary to cover the general case of left quasigroups. Both the Burnside Lemma and the Burnside algebra appear in this new context. This paper is dedicated to Walter Taylor. Received August 9, 2005; accepted in final form March 7, 2006.     

Retractability of set theoretic solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation

It is shown that square free set theoretic involutive non-degenerate solutions of the Yang-Baxter equation whose associated permutation group (referred to as an involutive Yang-Baxter group) is abelian are retractable in the sense of Etingof, Schedler and Soloviev. This solves a problem of Gateva-Ivanova in the case of abelian IYB groups. It also implies that the corresponding finitely presented abelian-by-finite groups (called the structure groups) are poly-Z groups. Secondly, an example of a solution with an abelian involutive Yang-Baxter group which is not a generalized twisted union is constructed. This answers in the negative another problem of Gateva-Ivanova. The constructed solution is of multipermutation level 3. Retractability of solutions is also proved in the case where the natural generators of the IYB group are cyclic permutations. Moreover, it is shown that such solutions are generalized twisted unions.     

Malcev presentations for subsemigroups of direct products of coherent groups

The direct product of a free group and a polycyclic group is known to be coherent. This paper shows that every finitely generated subsemigroup of the direct product of a virtually free group and an abelian group admits a finite Malcev presentation. (A Malcev presentation is a presentation of a special type for a semigroup that embeds into a group. A group is virtually free if it contains a free subgroup of finite index.) By considering the direct product of two free semigroups, it is also shown that polycyclic groups, unlike nilpotent groups, can contain finitely generated subsemigroups that do not admit finite Malcev presentations.     

Abelian subgroup separability of certain generalized free products of free or finitely generated nilpotent groups

In this paper we prove that certain generalized free products of abelian subgroup separable groups, amalgamating an infinite cyclic subgroup, are abelian subgroup separable. Applying this, we derive that tree products of free groups or finitely generated nilpotent groups, amalgamating infinite cyclic subgroups, are abelian subgroup separable.     

Diagram groups and directed 2-complexes: Homotopy and homology

We show that diagram groups can be viewed as fundamental groups of spaces of positive paths on directed 2-complexes (these spaces of paths turn out to be classifying spaces). Thus diagram groups are analogs of second homotopy groups, although diagram groups are as a rule non-Abelian. Part of the paper is a review of the previous results from this point of view. In particular, we show that the so-called rigidity of the R. Thompson's group F and some other groups is similar to the flat torus theorem. We find several finitely presented diagram groups (even of type F_∞) each of which contains all countable diagram groups. We show how to compute minimal presentations and homology groups of a large class of diagram groups. We show that the Poincaré series of these groups are rational functions. We prove that all integer homology groups of all diagram groups are free Abelian.     

Some open problems concerning relatively free and free profinite semigroups

Besides constituting an important and often crucial tool in studying semigroup varieties and pseudovarieties, relatively free and free profinite semigroups have proved to be of interest from many other natural standpoints. We present three groups of new problems concerning certain relatively free and free profinite semigroups and give background and motivation for them. The problems deal with the first-order theories of free profinite semigroups, the structure of free Burnside semigroups with commuting idempotents and of free Burnside inverse semigroups, and the representation of finitely generated free bands by order preserving transformations of a finite chain. April 19, 2001     

Diagram rigidity for geometric amalgamations of free groups

In this paper, we show that a class of 2-dimensional locally CAT(-1) spaces is topologically rigid: isomorphism of the fundamental groups is equivalent to the spaces being homeomorphic. An immediate application of this result is a diagram rigidity theorem for certain amalgamations of free groups. The direct limits of two such amalgamations are isomorphic if and only if there is an isomorphism between the respective diagrams.     

Automorphisms of groups

The survey presents classical assertions due to Nielsen, Whitehead, and others, well-known theorems on automorphisms included in monographs on group theory, and recent results in this area. Attention is focused on the progress in automorphism groups theory for free, solvable, modular, and profinite groups. New tools of investigation using graphs and geometrical ideas are also discussed.     

Writing certain commutators as products of cubes in free groups

Let Cu(γ) be the minimal number of cubes required to express an element γ of a free group F. We establish a method for showing that certain equations do not have solutions in free groups. Using it, we find Cu(γ) for certain elements of the derived subgroup of F. If is the wreath product of F by the infinite cyclic group, we also show that every element of W′ is a product of at most one commutator and three cubes in W.     

Non-cancellation for certain classes of groups

For a certain class of groups, which are semidirect products arising from an action of a finite rank free abelian group on another group, we study cancellation of the infinite cyclic group in isomorphic direct products. As an application we obtain a sufficient condition for triviality of the genus of certain nilpotent groups.     

Orientation-reversing free actions on handlebodies

We examine free orientation-reversing group actions on orientable handlebodies, and free actions on nonorientable handlebodies. A classification theorem is obtained, giving the equivalence classes and weak equivalence classes of free actions in terms of algebraic invariants that involve Nielsen equivalence. This is applied to describe the sets of free actions in various cases, including a complete classification for many (and conjecturally all) cases above the minimum genus. For abelian groups, the free actions are classified for all genera.     

On the fundamental groups of one-dimensional spaces

We study here a number of questions raised by examining the fundamental groups of complicated one-dimensional spaces. The first half of the paper considers one-dimensional spaces as such. The second half proves related results for general spaces that are needed in the first half but have independent interest. Among the results we prove are the theorem that the fundamental group of a separable, connected, locally path connected, one-dimensional metric space is free if and only if it is countable if and only if the space has a universal cover and the theorem that the fundamental group of a compact, one-dimensional, connected metric space embeds in an inverse limit of finitely generated free groups and is shape injective.     

Permutation groups of prime degree, a quick proof of Burnside’s theorem

A transitive permutation group of prime degree is doubly transitive or solvable. We give a direct proof of this theorem by Burnside which uses neither S-ring type arguments nor representation theory.Received: 9 December 2004     

On the inverse braid monoid

Inverse braid monoid describes a structure on braids where the number of strings is not fixed. So, some strings of initial n may be deleted. In the paper we show that many properties and objects based on braid groups may be extended to the inverse braid monoids. Namely we prove an inclusion into a monoid of partial monomorphisms of a free group. This gives a solution of the word problem. Another solution is obtained by an approach similar to that of Garside. We give also the analogues of Artin presentation with two generators and Sergiescu graph-presentations.     

Thick metric spaces,relative hyperbolicity,and quasi-isometric rigidity

We study the geometry of non-relatively hyperbolic groups. Generalizing a result of Schwartz, any quasi-isometric image of a non-relatively hyperbolic space in a relatively hyperbolic space is contained in a bounded neighborhood of a single peripheral subgroup. This implies that a group being relatively hyperbolic with non-relatively hyperbolic peripheral subgroups is a quasi-isometry invariant. As an application, Artin groups are relatively hyperbolic if and only if freely decomposable. We also introduce a new quasi-isometry invariant of metric spaces called metrically thick, which is sufficient for a metric space to be non-hyperbolic relative to any non-trivial collection of subsets. Thick finitely generated groups include: mapping class groups of most surfaces; outer automorphism groups of most free groups; certain Artin groups; and others. Non-uniform lattices in higher rank semisimple Lie groups are thick and hence non-relatively hyperbolic, in contrast with rank one which provided the motivating examples of relatively hyperbolic groups. Mapping class groups are the first examples of non-relatively hyperbolic groups having cut points in any asymptotic cone, resolving several questions of Drutu and Sapir about the structure of relatively hyperbolic groups. Outside of group theory, Teichmüller spaces for surfaces of sufficiently large complexity are thick with respect to the Weil–Peterson metric, in contrast with Brock–Farb’s hyperbolicity result in low complexity.     

Twisted second homology groups of the automorphism group of a free group

In this paper, we compute the second homology groups of the automorphism group of a free group with coefficients in the abelianization of the free group and its dual group except for the 2-torsion part, using combinatorial group theory.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Superscript>2</Superscript>-Betti numbers of one-relator groups

We determine the L ²-Betti numbers of all one-relator groups and all surface-plus-one-relation groups. We also obtain some information about the L ²-cohomology of left-orderable groups, and deduce the non-L ² result that, in any left-orderable group of homological dimension one, all two-generator subgroups are free. Warren Dicks was Funded by the DGI (Spain) through Project BFM2003-06613.     

A note on geometric constructions of bi-invariant orderings

We construct bi-invariant total orderings of residually torsion-free nilpotent groups by using Chen's iterated integrals. This construction can be seen as a generalization of the Magnus ordering of the free groups, and equivalent to the classical construction which uses an iteration of central extensions. Our geometric construction provides a connection between bi-orderings and the rational homotopy theory.     

Classification and statistics of finite index subgroups in free products

The principal theme of this paper is the enumeration of finite index subgroups Δ in a free product Γ of finite groups under various restrictions on the isomorphism type of Δ. In particular, we completely resolve the realization, asymptotic, and distribution problems for free products Γ of cyclic groups of prime order (prior to this work, these questions were wide open even in the case of the classical modular group). This complex of problems, usually referred to as Poincaré-Klein Problem, originally arose around 1880 out of the work of Klein and Poincaré on automorphic functions and related number theory, but has also grown roots in geometric function theory and, more recently, in the theory of subgroup growth. Ideas and techniques from the theory of generalized permutation representations (an enumerative theory of wreath product representations recently developed by the first named author) play a fundamental role here. Other tools come from analytic number theory, combinatorics, and probability theory.