The top of the lattice of normal subgroups of the Grigorchuk group (Q5956264)

This article studies the lattice of normal subgroups in the Grigorchuk group \(G\) [see \textit{R. I. Grigorchuk}, Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 14, No. 1, 53-54 (1980; Zbl 0595.20029), Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR, Ser. Mat. 48, No. 5, 939-985 (1985; Zbl 0583.20023) or (*) Prog. Math. 184, 121-179 (2000; Zbl 0982.20024) for background information and terminology]. For each normal subgroup \(N\triangleleft G\) its level is defined to be the largest integer \(n\) for which \(N\) acts trivially on the first \(n\) levels of the rooted binary tree on which \(G\) acts naturally. The paper determines all the normal subgroups at levels \(n=0,1,2,3\). That is, a full description of the lattice of all normal subgroups of index \(\leq 2^{12}\) is given (in particular, see Figure 1 in Section 6). As an application of the main argument a sharper version of the congruence property in Grigorchuk groups is given. The congruence property (see (*) [loc. cit.] and \textit{P. de la Harpe}, Topics in geometric group theory (2000; Zbl 0965.20025)) means that every finite index subgroup in \(G\) contains the stabilizer \(\text{St}_G(m)\) for some level \(m\). Namely, it is known that a normal subgroup of level \(n\) contains \(\text{St}_G(n+6)\). The sharper result obtained here is that, in fact, a normal subgroup of level \(n\) contains \(\text{St}_G(n+3)\), but not, in general, \(\text{St}_G(n+2)\) (Corollary 5.13 and Remark 5.14). These results follow from Theorem 5.12: A normal subgroup of level \(n\) contains \(N_1\times\cdots\times N_1\) (\(2^n\) times), where \(N_1\) is the third term of the lower central series of \(G\). The paper stops at the third level normal subgroups. But, as is shown in Section 7, the determination of normal subgroups at levels \(n\geq 4\) is reduced to the analysis of all \(G\)-submodules of certain \(G\)-modules whose structure only depends on \(n\) and on some suitable normal subgroups at level three.