Approximability of word maps by homomorphisms

Abstract: Generalizing a recent result of Mann, we show that there is an explicit function

f : l e f t (0, 1 i g h t] i g h t a r r o w l e f t (0, 1 i g h t]

such that for every reduced word

w

, say in

d

variables, there is an explicit reduced word

v

in at most

3 d

variables (nontrivial if the length of

w

is at least

2

) such that for all

h o i n l e f t (0, 1 i g h t]

, the following holds: If

G

is any finite group for which the word map

w_{G} : G^{d} i g h t a r r o w G

agrees with some fixed homomorphism

G^{d} i g h t a r r o w G

on at least

h o | G |^{d}

many arguments, then the word map

v_{G} : G^{3 d} i g h t a r r o w G

has a fiber of size at least

f (h o) | G |^{3 d}

. We also discuss some applications of this result.

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