A note on doubles of groups (Q5928851)

A group \(G\) is called coherent if every finitely generated subgroup is finitely presented. A group \(G\) is called locally extended residually finite (LERF) if for every finitely generated subgroup \(H\) and every element \(g\in G\setminus H\) there is a subgroup \(L\) of finite index such that \(H\leq L\) and \(g\notin L\). A group \(G\) admits a solution to the generalized word problem if there is an algorithm that decides for every element \(g\in G\) and every finitely generated subgroup \(L\) whether \(g\) is in \(L\) or not. The main result of this paper is the following Theorem 1.4. Let a group \(G\) contain a proper subgroup \(H\) such that \(|G:H|\geq 3\). 1. Assume that \(H\) contains a proper subgroup \(N\) with the following properties: (a) \(N\) contains a non-Abelian free subgroup; (b) \(N\) is normal in \(G\). Then the double \(L=G*_HG\) contains \(F_2\times F_2\) and is thus neither coherent nor LERF nor does it admit a solution to the generalized word problem. 2. Assume that \(G\) is a finitely generated virtually (non-Abelian) free group and \(H\) has finite index in \(G\). The double \(L=G*_HG\) is virtually the direct product \(F_r\times F_s\) of two non-Abelian free groups of finite rank. Moreover, \(F_2\times F_2\) and \(G*_HG\) are commensurable.