Branch groups (Q5942058)

Groups acting on rooted trees with transitive action on every level are considered in the paper. The class of branch groups as well as the class of profinite branch groups is defined and basic properties of these groups are studied. The relationship of these classes with classes of just infinite groups in both abstract and profinite context is investigated. The connection between abstract and profinite branch groups is exhibited by means of the congruence property (with respect to level stabilizers). The author also discusses the question of existence of maximal subgroups of infinite index as well as subgroups which are maximal in the set of subgroups of infinite index. A more detailed exposition and proofs of the majority of the results stated here is given by \textit{R. I. Grigorchuk} [in: New horizons in pro-\(p\) groups, Birkhäuser. Prog. Math. 184, 121-179 (2000; Zbl 0982.20024)].