The congruence subgroup problem for the free metabelian group on \(n\geq 4\) generators (Q2032433)

Summary: The congruence subgroup problem for a finitely generated group \(\Gamma\) asks whether the map \(\widehat{\mathrm{Aut}(\Gamma)}\to\mathrm{Aut}(\widehat{\Gamma})\) is injective, or more generally, what is its kernel \(C(\Gamma)\)? Here \(\widehat{X}\) denotes the profinite completion of \(X\). It is well known that for finitely generated free abelian groups \(C(\mathbb{Z}^n)=\{1\}\) for every \(n\geq 3\), but \(C(\mathbb{Z}^2)=\widehat{F}_{\omega}\), where \(\widehat{F}_{\omega}\) is the free profinite group on countably many generators. Considering \(\Phi_n\), the free metabelian group on \(n\) generators, it was also proven that \(C(\Phi_2)=\widehat{F}_{\omega}\) and \(C(\Phi_3)\supseteq\widehat{F}_{\omega}\). In this paper we prove that \(C(\Phi_n)\) for \(n\geq 4\) is abelian. So, while the dichotomy in the abelian case is between \(n=2\) and \(n\geq 3\), in the metabelian case it is between \(n=2,3\) and \(n\geq 4\).