Fibre products, non-positive curvature, and decision problems

We give a criterion for fibre products to be finitely presented and use it as the basis of a construction that encodes the pathologies of finite group presentations into pairs of groups where G is a product of hyperbolic groups and P is a finitely presented subgroup. This enables us to prove that there is a finitely presented subgroup P in a biautomatic group G such that the generalized word problem for is unsolvable and P has an unsolvable conjugacy problem. An additional construction shows that there exists a compact non-positively curved polyhedron X such that is biautomatic and there is no algorithm to decide isomorphism among the finitely presented subgroups of . Received: October 7, 1999.     

Subdirect products of finitely presented metabelian groups

There has been substantial investigation in recent years of subdirect products of limit groups and their finite presentability and homological finiteness properties. To contrast the results obtained for limit groups, Baumslag, Bridson, Holt and Miller investigated subdirect products (fibre products) of finitely presented metabelian groups. They showed that, in contrast to the case for limit groups, such subdirect products could have diverse behaviour with respect to finite presentability.We show that, in a sense that can be made precise, ‘most’ subdirect products of a finite set of finitely presented metabelian groups are again finitely presented. To be a little more precise, we assign to each subdirect product a point of an algebraic variety and show that, in most cases, those points which correspond to non-finitely presented subdirect products form a subvariety of smaller dimension.     

Finite presentation of fibre products of metabelian groups

We show that if Γ is a finitely presented metabelian group, then the “untwisted” fibre product or pull-back P associated to any short exact sequence 1→N→Γ→Q→1 is again finitely presented. In contrast, if N and Q are abelian, then the analogous “twisted” fibre-product is not finitely presented unless Γ is polycyclic. Also a number of examples are constructed, including a non-finitely presented metabelian group P with finitely generated.     

The generalized Chern conjecture for manifolds that are locally a product of surfaces

We consider closed manifolds that admit a metric locally isometric to a product of symmetric planes. For such manifolds, we prove that the Euler characteristic is an obstruction to the existence of flat structures, confirming an old conjecture proved by Milnor in dimension 2. In particular, the Chern conjecture follows in these cases. The proof goes via a new sharp Milnor–Wood inequality for Riemannian manifolds that are locally a product of hyperbolic planes. Furthermore, we analyze the possible flat vector bundles over such manifolds. Over closed Hilbert–Blumenthal modular varieties, we show that there are finitely many flat structures with nonzero Euler number and none of them corresponds to the tangent bundle. Some of the main results were announced in [M. Bucher, T. Gelander, Milnor–Wood inequalities for manifolds locally isometric to a product of hyperbolic planes, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Ser. I 346 (2008) 661–666].     

The tail probability of the product of dependent random variables from max-domains of attraction

In this article, we investigate the tail probability of the product of finitely many non-negative dependent random variables. They follow distributions from max-domains of attraction of extreme value distributions and their dependence is modeled via a multivariate Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern distribution. For each of the Fréchet, Gumbel and Weibull cases, we obtain an explicit asymptotic formula for the tail probability of the product. Our study extends a few known results in the literature.     

Bruck–Reilly extensions of direct products of monoids and completely (0-)simple semigroups

We say that a class of monoids satisfies the property ℘ if every monoid in that class that admits a finitely presented Bruck–Reilly extension is finitely generated. We show that completely (0-)simple semigroups satisfy ℘, and that the direct product of two monoids in a class that satisfy ℘ also satisfies ℘ subject to a certain condition on the endomorphisms of the direct product. As a consequence of this result we obtain a new class of bands and a new class of completely regular semigroups that satisfy property ℘.     

Essential extensions, excellent extensions and finitely presented dimension

In Section 1 of this paper, we investigate the finitely presented dimension of an essential extension for a module, and obtain results concerning an essential extension of a torsion-free module. We partially answer the question: When is an essential extension of a finitely presented module (an almost finitely presented module) also finitely presented (almost finitely presented)? In Section 2, we study theC-excellent extensions and the finitely presented dimensions. We obtain some results on the homological dimensions of matrix rings and group rings.     

Finite axiomatizability in ?ukasiewicz logic

We classify every finitely axiomatizable theory in infinite-valued propositional ?ukasiewicz logic by an abstract simplicial complex (V,Σ) equipped with a weight function ω:V→{1,2,…}. Using the W?odarczyk–Morelli solution of the weak Oda conjecture for toric varieties, we then construct a Turing computable one–one correspondence between (Alexander) equivalence classes of weighted abstract simplicial complexes, and equivalence classes of finitely axiomatizable theories, two theories being equivalent if their Lindenbaum algebras are isomorphic. We discuss the relationship between our classification and Markov’s undecidability theorem for PL-homeomorphism of rational polyhedra.     

Singular superspaces

We introduce a wide category of superspaces, called locally finitely generated, which properly includes supermanifolds, but enjoys much stronger permanence properties, as are prompted by applications. Namely, it is closed under taking finite fibre products (i.e. is finitely complete) and thickenings by spectra of Weil superalgebras. Nevertheless, in this category, morphisms with values in a supermanifold are still given in terms of coordinates. This framework gives a natural notion of relative supermanifolds over a locally finitely generated base. Moreover, the existence of inner homs, whose source is the spectrum of a Weil superalgebra, is established; they are generalisations of the Weil functors defined for smooth manifolds.     

Embeddings in finitely presented groups which preserve the center

V.N. Remeslennikov proposed in 1976 the following problem: is any countable abelian group a subgroup of the center of some finitely presented group? We prove that every finitely generated recursively presented group G is embeddable in a finitely presented group K such that the center of G coincide with that of K. We prove also that there exists a finitely presented group H with soluble word problem such that every countable abelian group is embeddable in the center of H. This gives a strong positive answer to the question raised by V.N. Remeslennikov.     

On Presentations of Bruck–Reilly Extensions

We first consider the class of monoids in which every left invertible element is also right invertible, and prove that if a monoid belonging to this class admits a finitely presented Bruck–Reilly extension then it is finitely generated. This allow us to obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for the Bruck–Reilly extensions of this class of monoids to be finitely presented. We then prove that thes 𝒟-classes of a Bruck–Reilly extension of a Clifford monoid are Bruck–Reilly extensions of groups. This yields another necessary and sufficient condition for these Bruck–Reilly extensions to be finitely generated and presented. Finally, we show that a Bruck–Reilly extension of a Clifford monoid is finitely presented as an inverse monoid if and only if it is finitely presented as a monoid, and that this property cannot be generalized to Bruck–Reilly extensions of arbitrary inverse monoids.     

Varieties and Torsion Classes of m-Groups

We prove that every variety of m-groups is a torsion class; find basis of identities for a product variety of m-groups; and show that the product of every finitely based variety of m-groups and a variety of Abelian m-groups is a finitely based variety.     

Model-theoretic Imaginaries and Coherent Sheaves

We show the equivalence of categories of model-theoretic imaginaries (of various kinds) with categories of “small” (finitely generated, finitely presented, coherent) functors. We do this first for certain locally finitely presented categories and then, by localising, for much more general “definable categories” (categories of models of coherent theories). We also investigate the corresponding notion of interpretation.     

Presentations for S and S/ρ from a Given Presentation for ρ

We consider a congruence on a semigroup S as a subsemigroup of the direct product S × S. Then we prove that if is finitely presented then both S and S/ are finitely presented.     

On the Howson property of HNN-extensions with abelian base group and amalgamated free products of abelian groups

We give necessary and sufficient conditions under which an HNN-extension with abelian base group or an amalgamated free product of abelian groups is a Howson group (that is the intersection of any two finitely generated subgroups is finitely generated). We describe HNN-extensions and amalgamated free products which are Howson groups without satisfying the Burns–Cohen statements.     

Automatic subsemigroups of free products

We consider the automaticity of subsemigroups of free products of semigroups, proving that subsemigroups of free products, with all generators having length greater than one in the free product, are automatic. As a corollary, we show that if S is a free product of semigroups that are either finite or free, then any finitely generated subsemigroup of S is automatic. In particular, any finitely generated subsemigroup of a free product of finite or monogenic semigroups is automatic.     

Embedding Free Burnside Groups in Finitely Presented Groups

We construct an embedding of a free Burnside group B(m,n) of odd exponent n > 2⁴⁸ and rank m >1 in a finitely presented group with some special properties. The main application of this embedding is an easy construction of finitely presented nonamenable groups without noncyclic free subgroups (which provides a new finitely presented counterexample to the von Neumann problem on amenable groups). As another application, we construct weakly finitely presented groups of odd exponent n ≫ 1 which are not locally finite.     

Applying Gröbner basis techniques to group theory

We apply the machinery of Gröbner bases to finitely presented groups. This allows for computational methods to be developed which prove that a given finitely presented group is not n-linear over a field k assuming some mild conditions. We also present an algorithm which determines whether or not a finitely presented group G is trivial given that an oracle has told us that G is n-linear over an algebraically closed field k.     

Non-distortion of twin building lattices

We show that twin building lattices are undistorted in their ambient group; equivalently, the orbit map of the lattice to the product of the associated twin buildings is a quasi-isometric embedding. As a consequence, we provide an estimate of the quasi-flat rank of these lattices, which implies that there are infinitely many quasi-isometry classes of finitely presented simple groups. Finally, we describe how non-distortion of lattices is related to the integrability of the structural cocycle.     

The identities of the free product of two trivial semigroups

We exhibit an example of a finitely presented semigroup S with a minimum number of relations such that the identities of S have a finite basis while the monoid obtained by adjoining 1 to S admits no finite basis for its identities. Our example is the free product of two trivial semigroups.