Towards the Hanna Neumann conjecture using Dicks' method (Q1911542)

First \textit{A. G. Howson} [J. Lond. Math. Soc. 29, 428-434 (1954; Zbl 0056.02106)] proved that the intersection of two finitely generated subgroups of a free group is finitely generated and gave a bound of the rank of the intersection in terms of the ranks of the two subgroups. A couple of years later \textit{Hanna Neumann} [Publ. Math. 4, 186-189 (1956; Zbl 0070.02001)] improved this bound and conjectured a stronger bound. More precisely let \(\widetilde{r} (H)\) be the reduced rank of the subgroup \(H\) of the free group \(F\), where \(\widetilde{r}(H)=\max(\text{rank}(H)-1,0)\), then the Hanna Neumann conjecture is \(r(H\cap K)\leq r(H)r(K)\), for finitely generated subgroups \(H\), \(K\) of \(F\). \textit{Walter Neumann} [Lect. Notes Math. 1456, 161-170 (1990; Zbl 0722.20016)] gave a strengthened form of this conjecture, i.e. \(r(H,K)\leq r(H)r(K)\), where \(r(H,K)=\sum r(g^{-1}Hg\cap K)\), where the summation extends over the representatives \(g\) of the double cosets \(HgK\). Recently \textit{Warren Dicks} [Invent. Math. 117, No. 3, 373-389 (1994; Zbl 0809.05055)] proved the equivalence of the strengthened Hanna Neumann conjecture with a conjecture of bipartite graphs that he called the amalgamated graph conjecture. In the present paper the author by applying Dicks' method improves a previously given upper bound by \textit{R. G. Burns} [Math. Z. 119, 121-130 (1971; Zbl 0204.34003)] and proves \(\widetilde{r}(H,K)\leq 2\widetilde{r}(H)\widetilde{r}(K)-\widetilde{r}(H)-\widetilde{r}(K)+1\) for all pairs of ranks for which \(\widetilde{r}(H)\), \(\widetilde{r}(K)\geq 1\). He also proves a special case of the amalgamated graph conjecture. By this same method he improves the bound by one if the subgroups have rank at least three and proves the Hanna Neumann conjecture if both subgroups have rank three.