Parity patterns associated with lifts of Hecke groups. (Q1032511)

The arithmetic of subgroup growth for free and amalgamated products of finite groups has been studied by the second author over several years. He has obtained substantial and very interesting results. The questions studied involve, in particular, the determination of parity patterns for the number of subgroups of given indices isomorphic to given groups. In this paper, he collaborates with the first author, who is also an authority on algebraic combinatorics, to obtain interesting results on parity patterns for lifts of the Hecke groups \(H_q=C_2*C_q\) where \(q\) is an odd prime. In [Adv. Math. 153, No. 1, 118-154 (2000; Zbl 1004.20016)], the second author defined generalized subgroup numbers which count the number of homomorphisms from subgroups of \(C_{2m}*_{C_m}C_{qm}\) of a given index to any fixed finite group of order coprime to \(m\). The main result of the authors is a determination of the parity behaviour of these generalized subgroup numbers. The problem depends on three subsidiary enumeration problems: (i) enumerating parity of subgroup numbers of \(H_q\), (ii) enumerating parity of number of index \(n\) subgroups of \(H_q\) isomorphic to \(C_2*C_\infty\), and (iii) enumerating the parity of number of subgroups of index \(n\) in \(H_q\) which are isomorphic to free products of copies of \(C_q\). The first problem was solved by the second author 5 years back. In this paper, the other two enumeration problems are solved in Theorems 16 and 24. The enumeration of finite index subgroups of a given type in Hecke groups is done via the so-called coset diagrams. The latter are formed by translating into geometric language information coming from permutation representations.