An effective bound for groups of linear growth (Q1059714)

The main result is an improvement and a completely elementary proof of one special case of M. Gromov's theorem. Let \(\Gamma\) be a group with a finite generating set X, and put \(G(n)=\#\{g\in G|\) \(g=x_ 1...x_ n\) for certain \(x_ i\in X\cup X^{-1}\cup \{1\}\}\) for each \(n\geq 0\). \textit{M. Gromov}'s result [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Etud. Sci. 53, 53-78 (1981; Zbl 0474.20018)] states that if G(n) is majorized by a polynomial then \(\Gamma\) is nilpotent by finite. It is deep. The authors show that if \(\Gamma\) is infinite, if \(m>0\) and if G(m)-G(m-1)\(\leq m\) then \(\Gamma\) has an infinite cyclic subgroup of index \(\leq m^ 4\).