The non-commutative Specker phenomenon in the uncountable case (Q1849087)

The authors consider the non-commutative Specker phenomenon which was first considered by Higman in 1952. Let \(I\) be an arbitrary set. For groups \(G_i\) (\(i\in I\)), the free product is denoted by \(*_{i\in I}G_i\). Given arbitrary subsets \(X\subset Y\) of \(I\) let \(\rho_{XY}\colon *_{i\in Y}G_i\to*_{i\in X}G_i\) be the canonical homomorphism. Then the set \(\{*_{i\in X}G_i:X\Subset I\}\) together with the homomorphisms \(\rho_{XY}\) (\(X\subset Y\Subset I\)) form an inverse system; its inverse limit \(\varprojlim(*_{i\in X}G_i,\rho_{XY}:X\subset Y\Subset I)\) is called the unrestricted free product of the \(G_i\)'s. Here \(X\Subset I\) means that \(X\) is a finite subset of \(I\). Higman had proved that for countable \(I\) any homomorphism from \(\varprojlim(*_{i\in X}G_i,\rho_{XY}:X\subset Y\Subset I)\) to a free group factors through a finite free product \(*_{i\in F}G_i\). The authors prove that this result can be extended to uncountable index sets by showing the following result: Let \(F\) be a free group and assume that the cardinality of \(I\) is less than the least measurable cardinal. Then for any homomorphism \(h\colon\varprojlim(*_{i\in X}G_i,\rho_{XY}:X\subset Y\Subset I)\to F\) there exists a finite subset \(X_0\) of \(I\) and a homomorphism \(\overline h\colon*_{i\in X_0}G_i\to F\) such that \(h=\overline hp_{X_0}\) where \(p_{X_0}\) is the canonical projection onto \(*_{i\in X_0}G_i\). This shows the similarity to the Abelian case and contrasts with a result proved by the second author and the reviewer for the free complete product.