Perfect Prishchepov groups (Q2236082)

Cyclically presented groups form an interesting class of groups that appear in different mathematical areas. An important issue in the study of cyclically presented groups of type \(\mathfrak{F}\) is the question of when they are either trivial or perfect. The general presentation of cyclically presented groups of type \(\mathfrak{F}\) is known and the Prishchepov groups iform a special subclass. It is proved that the above problem can be reduced to Prishchepov groups \(P(r, n, k, s, q)\). Prishchepov groups contain some interesting classes of groups like Conway's Fibonacci groups \(F(2,n) = P(2,n,3,1,1)\), the groups of Fibonacci type \(G_n(m, k) = P (2, n, k + 1, 1, m)\) and others. The paper starts with a couple of easy reductions. The first is that \(P(r, n, k, s, q) \cong P(r, n, n- k +2, r, q)\) and thus it can be assumed that \(r \ge s\). The second is that the Prishchepov group is the free product of Prishchepov groups \(P(r, n, k, s, q)\) with \((n, q, k -1) = 1\). Thus it is assumed that \((n, q, k -1) = 1\). The third reduction is that it can be assumed that \(q = 1\) because, if \(P(r, n, k, s, q)\) is perfect and \((n, q, k -1) =1\) implies that \((n, q) = 1\) and \(P(r, n, k, s, q) \cong P(r, n, \hat{q}(k - 1), s, 1)\) where \(q\hat{q} \equiv 1\bmod n\). The proofs use properties of circulant matrices and the algebraic structure of Prishchepov groups. The characterisation of perfect and trivial Prishchepov groups is given in steps with increasing complexity of the presentation. For the groups \(H(r, n, s) = P(r, n, r+1, s, 1)\), it is proved that they are perfect if and only if they are trivial if and only if \(|r - s| =1\) and either \(r \equiv 0\) or \(s \equiv 0\bmod n\). In particular, this result proves a conjecture stated by Williams. Furthermore, the authors state a characterisation of the \(H(r, n, s)\) groups that are LOG (labelled oriented graph groups). In particular the only LOG groups in this category are the \((n, r)\)-torus knot group and \(\mathbb{Z}\). The second result is for groups of type \(\tilde{\mathfrak{Z}}\) (which are of two types: (\(\mathfrak{Z}\)) \(q(r - s) \equiv 2(k - 1)\bmod n\) and (\(\mathfrak{Z}'\)) \(q(r + s) \equiv 0\bmod n)\). They prove that the group \(P(r, n, k, s, q)\) of type \(\tilde{\mathfrak{Z}}\) is perfect if and only if \(|r - s| =1\), \((n, q) = 1\) and \((k - 1 - qr, n) = 1\). The authors state a conjecture which states that if the group \(P(r, n, k, r - 1, q)\) is perfect then it is of type \(\tilde{\mathfrak{Z}}\). If the conjecture is verified, then, when it is combined with the results of the paper, it will provide a complete classification of perfect Prishchepov groups The final result is that \(P({\alpha}n + r, m , k, {\beta}n + r - 1, q)\) is perfect if \(\alpha = \beta\) and \(P(r, n, k, r - 1, q)\) is perfect.