Alexander varieties and largeness of finitely presented groups (Q2255553)

A 2-complex \(X\) is said to be \textit{large} if there is a finite cover of \(X\) whose fundamental group surjects on a free group of rank 2. The main result of this paper is: { Theorem 1.1} Let \(X\) be a finite CW-complex. The following are equivalent: {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[(1)] \(X\) is large. \item [(2)] There is a finite cover \(Y\to X\) such that for each \(n\in\mathbb N\) there is a finite abelian cover \(Y_n\to Y\) with \(b_1(Y_n)\geq n\). \item [(3)] There is a finite cover \(Y\to X\) such that the Alexander variety of \(Y\) contains infinitely many torsion points. \end{itemize}} As a first corollary the author recovers a special case of a result of Cooper, Long and Reid: A noncompact, finite volume, fibered, hyperbolic 3-manifold is large. Then: { Corollary 1.3} Let \(S\) be an orientable surface with finite negative Euler-characteristic and let \(\psi \) be a nontrivial element of the mapping class group of \(S\). {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[(1)] If \(\psi \) is not pseudo-Anosov then the mapping torus \(T_\psi \) is large. \item [(2)] If there is no lift \(\tilde{\psi }\) to a finite cover such that the spectral radius of the action of \(\tilde{\psi }\) on \(H_1(\tilde{S}, \mathbb C)\) is greater than 1, then \(T_\psi \) is large. \end{itemize}} The last corollary states that if a group \(G\) has a finite presentation with at least 2 more generators than relators, then \(G\) is large.