Positive laws on word values in residually-\(p\) groups. (Q2254154)

A positive group law is a law given by equation \(\alpha =\beta\), where \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are positive group words. The following problem is considered: if the set of all values of a word \(w\) in a group \(G\) satisfies a positive law, does it follow that the whole verbal subgroup \(w(G)\) also satisfies a positive law? An affirmative answer is obtained for any simple commutator word \(w\) in the realm of finitely generated residually-\(p\) groups for all but finitely many primes \(p\), depending on the positive law (Theorem A). Here, for a prime \(p\), a group \(G\) is said to be residually-\(p\) if for every \(x\in G\) there is a normal subgroup \(N\) such that \(G/N\) is a finite \(p\)-group and \(x\not\in N\). Furthermore, it is proved that if the set of all powers of the values of a simple commutator \(w\) satisfies a positive law, then the conclusion holds for all primes (Theorem B). Both Theorems A and B are consequences of a more general Theorem C, which is the same kind of result for any commutator-closed word \(w\) that has finite width in the pro-\(p\) completion of the group. These results are extended to any outer (multilinear) commutator word in the case that the verbal subgroup \(w(G)\) is finitely generated (Theorem E). In all these results the degrees of the words satisfied by the verbal subgroup \(w(G)\) are bounded in terms of the parameters involved.