On finiteness of verbal subgroups (Q2069828)

Let \(w = w(x_{1}, \ldots, x_{k})\) be a group-word in variables \(x_{1}, \ldots , x_{k}\), let \(G_{w}\) be the set of all values of \(w\) in \(G\) and let \(w(G)=\langle G_{w} \rangle\) be the verbal subgroup of \(G\) with respect to \(w\). A word \(w\) is concise if \(w(G)\) is finite for every group \(G\) such that \(G_{w}\) is finite. A word such that the sum of the exponents of some variable involved in it is non-zero is a non-commutator word. Philip Hall had conjectured that every word is concise (the conjecture was refuted by \textit{S. V. Ivanov} [Sov. Math. 33, No. 6, 59--70 (1990; Zbl 0697.20016); translation from Izv. Vyssh. Uchebn. Zaved., Mat. 1989, No. 6(325), 60--70 (1989)]) and he proved conciseness of non-commutator words. In the paper under review it is conjectured that the word \([u_{1},\ldots , u_{s}]\) is concise whenever the words \(u_{1}, \ldots, u_{s}\) are non-commutators and the purpose of the authors is to furnish evidence for the above conjecture. In particular, the following result is proved (Theorem 1.2): If \(u_{1},u_{2},u_{3}\) are non-commutator words, then the word \([u_{1}, u_{2}, u_{3}]\) is concise.