Finitely Presented Wreath Products and Double Coset Decompositions

We characterize which permutational wreath products $G \ltimes W^{(X)}We characterize which permutational wreath products are finitely presented. This occurs if and only if G and W are finitely presented, G acts on X with finitely generated stabilizers, and with finitely many orbits on the cartesian square X ². On the one hand, this extends a result of G. Baumslag about infinite presentation of standard wreath products; on the other hand, this provides nontrivial examples of finitely presented groups. For instance, we obtain two quasi-isometric finitely presented groups, one of which is torsion-free and the other has an infinite torsion subgroup. Motivated by the characterization above, we discuss the following question: which finitely generated groups can have a finitely generated subgroup with finitely many double cosets? The discussion involves properties related to the structure of maximal subgroups, and to the profinite topology.      

On Turner’s theorem and first-order theory

A theorem of E.C. Turner states that if F is a finitely generated free group, then the test words are precisely the elements not contained in any proper retract. In this paper, we examine some ideas in model theory and logic related to Turner’s characterization of test words and introduce Turner groups, a class of groups containing all finite groups and all stably hyperbolic groups satisfying this characterization. We show that Turner’s theorem is not first-order expressible. However, we prove that every finitely generated elementary free group is a Turner group.     

On residually finite groups of finite general rank

Following A. I.Mal’tsev, we say that a group G has finite general rank if there is a positive integer r such that every finite set of elements of G is contained in some r-generated subgroup. Several known theorems concerning finitely generated residually finite groups are generalized here to the case of residually finite groups of finite general rank. For example, it is proved that the families of all finite homomorphic images of a residually finite group of finite general rank and of the quotient of the group by a nonidentity normal subgroup are different. Special cases of this result are a similar result of Moldavanskii on finitely generated residually finite groups and the following assertion: every residually finite group of finite general rank is Hopfian. This assertion generalizes a similarMal’tsev result on the Hopf property of every finitely generated residually finite group.     

FINITELY GENERATED G′ AND POSITIVE LAWS

We conjecture that a finitely generated relatively free group G has a finitely generated commutator subgroup G′ if and only if G satisfies a positive law. We confirm this conjecture for groups G in the large class, containing all residually finite and all soluble groups.     

Palindromic Width of Finitely Generated Solvable Groups

We investigate the palindromic width of finitely generated solvable groups. We prove that every finitely generated 3-step solvable group has finite palindromic width. More generally, we show the finiteness of the palindromic width for finitely generated abelian-by-nilpotent-by-nilpotent groups. For arbitrary solvable groups of step ≥3, we prove that if G is a finitely generated solvable group that is an extension of an abelian group by a group satisfying the maximal condition for normal subgroups, then the palindromic width of G is finite. We also prove that the palindromic width of ??? with respect to the set of standard generators is 3.     

Embedding of two-colored right-angled Coxeter groups into products of two binary trees

We prove that every finitely generated 2-colored right-angled Coxeter group Γ can be quasi-isometrically embedded into the product of two binary trees. Moreover we show that the natural extension of this embedding to n-colored groups is not for every group quasi-isometric. Partially supported by Swiss National Science Foundation.     

Strong approximation for Zariski dense subgroups over arbitrary global fields

Consider a finitely generated Zariski dense subgroup of a connected simple algebraic group G over a global field F. An important aspect of strong approximation is the question of whether the closure of in the group of points of G with coefficients in a ring of partial adeles is open. We prove an essentially optimal result in this direction, based on the condition that is not discrete in that ambient group. There are no restrictions on the characteristic of F or the type of G, and simultaneous approximation in finitely many algebraic groups is also studied. Classification of finite simple groups is not used. Received: August 31, 1999.     

The quasi-isometry classification of rank one lattices

Let X be a symmetric space—other than the hyperbolic plane—of strictly negative sectional curvature. Let G be the isometry group of X. We show that any quasi-isometry between non-uniform lattices in G is equivalent to (the restriction of) a group element of G which commensurates one lattice to the other. This result has the following corollaries:

1. Two non-uniform lattices in G are quasi-isometric if and only if they are commensurable.
2. Let Γ be a finitely generated group which is quasi-isometric to a non-uniform lattice in G. Then Γ is a finite extension of a non-uniform lattice in G.
3. A non-uniform lattice in G is arithmetic if and only if it has infinite index in its quasi-isometry group.

     

Automorphisms of Hyperbolic Groups and Graphs of Groups

Using the canonical JSJ splitting, we describe the outer automorphism group Out(G) of a one-ended word hyperbolic group G. In particular, we discuss to what extent Out(G) is virtually a direct product of mapping class groups and a free abelian group, and we determine for which groups Out(G) is infinite. We also show that there are only finitely many conjugacy classes of torsion elements in Out(G), for G any torsion-free hyperbolic group. More generally, let Γ be a finite graph of groups decomposition of an arbitrary group G such that edge groups G_e are rigid (i.e. Out(G_e) is finite). We describe the group of automorphisms of G preserving Γ, by comparing it to direct products of suitably defined mapping class groups of vertex groups.     

On Solvable R* Groups of Finite Rank

Abstract

For an element a of a group G,let S(a) denote the semigroup generated by all conjugates of a in G. We prove that if G is solvable of finite rank and 1 ? S(a) for all 1 ≠ a ∈ G,then ?a ^G ?/?b ^G ? is a periodic group for every b ∈ S(a). Conversely if every two generator subgroup of a finitely generated torsion-free solvable group G has this property then G has finite rank,and if every finitely generated subgroup has this property then every partial order on G can be extended to a total order.     

On monomial representations of finitely generated nilpotent groups

A result of Segal states that every complex irreducible representation of a finitely generated nilpotent group G is monomial if and only if G is abelian-by-finite. A conjecture of Parshin, recently proved affirmatively by Beloshapka and Gorchinskii (2016), characterizes the monomial irreducible representations of finitely generated nilpotent groups. This article gives a slightly shorter proof of the conjecture using ideas of Kutzko and Brown. We also give a characterization of the finite-dimensional irreducible representations of two-step nilpotent groups and describe these completely for two-step groups whose center has rank one.     

Average-case complexity and decision problems in group theory

We investigate the average-case complexity of decision problems for finitely generated groups, in particular, the word and membership problems. Using our recent results on “generic-case complexity”, we show that if a finitely generated group G has word problem solvable in subexponential time and has a subgroup of finite index which possesses a non-elementary word-hyperbolic quotient group, then the average-case complexity of the word problem of G is linear time, uniformly with respect to the collection of all length-invariant measures on G. This results applies to many of the groups usually studied in geometric group theory: for example, all braid groups B_n, all groups of hyperbolic knots, many Coxeter groups and all Artin groups of extra-large type.     

Finitely Presented, Coherent, and Ultrasimplicial Ordered Abelian Groups

We study notions such as finite presentability and coherence, for partially ordered abelian groups and vector spaces. Typical results are the following: (i) A partially ordered abelian group G is finitely presented if and only if G is finitely generated as a group, G⁺ is well-founded as a partially ordered set, and the set of minimal elements of G⁺\ {0} is finite. (ii) Torison-free, finitely presented partially ordered abelian groups can be represented as subgroups of some Zⁿ, with a finitely generated submonoid of (Z⁺)ⁿ as positive cone. (iii) Every unperforated, finitely presented partially ordered abelian group is Archimedean. Further, we establish connections with interpolation. In particular, we prove that a divisible dimension group G is a directed union of simplicial subgroups if and only if every finite subset of G is contained into a finitely presented ordered subgroup.     

Profinite groups with nonabelian crowns of bounded rank and their probabilistic zeta function

It has been conjectured by Mann that the infinite sum Σ _H μ(H,G)/|G:H| ^s , where H ranges over all open subgroups of a finitely generated profinite group G, converges absolutely in some half right plane if G is positively finitely generated. We prove that the conjecture is true if the nonabelian crowns of G have bounded rank. In particular Mann’s conjecture holds if G has polynomial subgroup growth or is an adelic profinite group.     

Presentations for a class of generalized Thompson’s groups

For a given group G and a monomorphism φ:G→G×G there is a group ?_φ(G), introduced by the author, which blends Thompson’s group F with G. Given a presentation of G we determine a presentation of ?_φ(G). In particular, we prove that ?_φ(G) is finitely generated (resp. finitely presented) if G is finitely generated (resp. finitely presented).     

A condition on finitely generated soluble groups

In this note we show that if Gis a finitely generated soluble group, then every infinite subset of Gcontains two elements generating a nilpotent group of class at most kif and only if Gis finite by a group in which every two generator subgroup is nilpotent of class at most k.     

The dualizing spectrum of a topological group

To a topological group G, we assign a naive G-spectrum , called the dualizing spectrum of G. When the classifying space BG is finitely dominated, we show that detects Poincaré duality in the sense that BG is a Poincaré duality space if and only if is a homotopy finite spectrum. Secondly, we show that the dualizing spectrum behaves multiplicatively on certain topological group extensions. In proving these results we introduce a new tool: a norm map which is defined for any G and for any naive G-spectrum E. Applications of the dualizing spectrum come in two flavors: (i) applications in the theory of Poincaré duality spaces, and (ii) applications in the theory of group cohomology. On the Poincaré duality space side, we derive a homotopy theoretic solution to a problem posed by Wall which says that in a fibration sequence of fini the total space satisfies Poincaré duality if and only if the base and fiber do. The dualizing spectrum can also be used to give an entirely homotopy theoretic construction of the Spivak fibration of a finitely dominated Poincaré duality space. We also include a new proof of Browder's theorem that every finite H-space satisfies Poincaré duality. In connection with group cohomology, we show how to define a variant of Farrell-Tate cohomology for any topological or discrete group G, with coefficients in any naive equivariant cohomology theory E. When E is connective, and when G admits a subgroup H of finite index such that BH is finitely dominated, we show that this cohomology coincides with the ordinary cohomology of G with coefficients in E in degrees greater than the cohomological dimension of H. In an appendix, we identify the homotopy type of for certain kinds of groups. The class includes all compact Lie groups, torsion free arithmetic groups and Bieri-Eckmann duality groups. Received July 14, 1999 / Revised May 17, 2000 / Published online February 5, 2001