Isoperimetric inequalities for nilpotent groups. (Q1413653)

In a group \(G\) with generating set \(C\) and relator set \(R\), a word \(w\) is nullhomotopic if it can be reduced, through a sequence \(w= w_0,w_1,\dots, w_m=\emptyset\) to the empty word by a finite number of insertions and deletions of relators, either trivial or from \(R\). An isoperimetric function \(f(n)\) bounds the number of times the nontrivial relators from \(R\) must be used for reducing a nullhomotopic word \(w\) of length \(n\) to the empty word. A filling function \(g(n)\) bounds the maximum length \(| w_i|\) necessary in such reductions of nullhomotopic words of length \(n\). The authors verify an interesting conjecture by proving that, in a finitely generated nilpotent group of class \(c\), there exists a finite presentation and a positive constant \(\lambda\) such that \(\lambda n^{c+1}\) is an isoperimetric function and \(\lambda n\) is a filling function. The proof proceeds by induction on class \(c\).