Conservative subgroup separability for surfaces with boundary (Q1938758)

Let \(F\) be a compact connected surface with boundary. A nontrivial element of \(\pi_1(F)\) is \textit{peripheral} if it is represented by a loop freely homotopic into \(\delta F\). A covering \(p: \tilde{F}\to F \) is \textit{conservative} if \(F\) and \(\tilde{F}\) have the same number of boundary components. The authors show: Theorem 0.1. Let \(H\subset\pi_1(F)\) be a finitely generated subgroup with no peripheral elements. Given a finite subset \(B\subset \pi_1(F)\backslash H\), there exists a finite-sheeted conservative cover \(p: \tilde{F}\to F \) such that: (i) There is a compact connected \(\pi_1\)-injective subsurface \(S\subset \tilde{F}\) such that \(p_*(\pi_1(S))=H\). (ii) \(p_*(\pi_1(\tilde{F}))\) contains no element of \(B\). (iii) \(\tilde{F}\backslash S\) is connected and \(incl_*: H_1(S)\to H_1(\tilde{F})\) is injective. This Theorem generalizes a result of Masters and Zhang.