The width of a power of a free nilpotent group of nilpotency class \(2\) (Q1586965): Difference between revisions

Let \(G\) be a group. Let \(wG\) be the verbal subgroup of \(G\) defined by a word \(w\). Recall that the width \(\text{wid}(g,w)\) of \(g\in wG\) with respect to \(w\) is the least number \(l\) such that \(g\) is equal to a product of \(l\) values of \(w^{\pm 1}\) in \(G\). For a subset \(M\) of \(wG\), define \(\text{wid}(g,M)\) by \(\max_{g\in M}\text{wid}(g,w)\). The author proves that the width of a free nilpotent finitely generated group of class 2 with respect to \(x^k\) is finite and does not depend on \(k\). More precisely, the following theorem is proven: Let \(N_n\) be a free nilpotent group of class 2 and let \(k\geq 1\) be a positive integer. Then (1) \(\text{wid}(x^{2k},N_n^{2k})=2[n/2]+1\), where \(n\geq 2\); (2) \(\text{wid}(x^{2k+1},N_n^{2k+1})=1\).