Growth of primitive elements in free groups.

DOI10.1112/JLMS/JDU009MaRDI QIDQ2874650zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 8 August 2014

Published in Journal of the London Mathematical Society. Second Series (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.7979

free groups growth rates primitive elements random primitive words Whitehead algorithm word lengths

Asymptotic enumeration (05A16) Free nonabelian groups (20E05) Generators, relations, and presentations of groups (20F05) Asymptotic properties of groups (20F69) Probabilistic methods in group theory (20P05)

Abstract: In the free group

F_{k}

, an element is said to be primitive if it belongs to a free generating set. In this paper, we describe what a generic primitive element looks like. We prove that up to conjugation, a random primitive word of length

N

contains one of the letters exactly once asymptotically almost surely (as

N o i n f t y

). This also solves a question from the list `Open problems in combinatorial group theory' [Baumslag-Myasnikov-Shpilrain 02']. Let

p_{k, N}

be the number of primitive words of length

N

in

F_{k}

. We show that for

k g e 3

, the exponential growth rate of

p_{k, N}

is

2 k - 3

. Our proof also works for giving the exact growth rate of the larger class of elements belonging to a proper free factor.

Review text

Let \(F_k\) be the free group on \(k\geq 2\) generators. An element \(w\in F_k\) is primitive if it belongs to some basis of \(F_k\); a subgroup \(H\leq F_k\) is a free factor of \(F_k\) if there is another group \(H'\) such that \(H*H'=F_k\). Let \(P_{k,N}=\{w\in F_k\mid w\mathrm{ is primitive},\;|w|=N\}\), \(C_{k,N}=\{[w]\in F_k\mid w\mathrm{ is primitive},\;|w|_c=N\}\), where \([w]\), the cyclic word associated with \(w\), denotes the conjugacy class of \(w\); \(|w|\) denotes the length of \(w\) in \(F_k\), and \(|w|_c\), the cyclic length of \(w\), denotes the length of cyclically reduced elements of \([w]\).NEWLINENEWLINE Wicks asked for the growth rates \(\rho_k=\limsup_{N\to\infty}(|P_{k,N}|^{1/N})\) and \(\limsup_{N\to\infty}(|C_{k,N}|^{1/N})\). This article answers these questions: for \(k\geq 3\) \(\rho_k=2k-3\) (\(\rho_2=\sqrt 3\) is known by \textit{I. Rivin} [Geom. Dedicata 107, 99-100 (2004; Zbl 1071.20032)]), and for \(k\geq 2\) we have \(\limsup_{N\to\infty}(|C_{k,N}|^{1/N})=2k-3\). The proofs involve a detailed analysis of the Whitehead algorithm to detect primitive elements and understanding random primitive words of length \(N\). It is shown that such a word contains one of the generators of \(F_k\) exactly once asymptotically almost surely (as \(N\to\infty\)). The method of proof is also used to find the growth rate of the set \(S_{k,N}\) (containing \(P_{k,N}\)) that consists of all elements of \(F_k\) of length \(N\) that are contained in a proper free factor of \(F_k\), and for \(k\geq 3\) we have \(\limsup_{N\to\infty}(|S_{k,N}|^{1/N})=2k-3\).

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