Plotkin's geometric equivalence, Mal'cev's closure, and incompressible nilpotent groups (Q2284614)

For every odd \(n\ge 7\), consider the Lie \(\mathbb{Q}\)-algebra \(\mathfrak{g}_n=\mathbb{Q}-\mathrm{span}\{e_1, \ldots, e_n\}\) with nonzero Lie brackets \begin{align*} [e_1, e_k] &= e_{k+1},\qquad k=2, \ldots, n-1, \\ [e_2, e_k] &= e_{k+3},\qquad k=3, \ldots, n-3, \\ [e_k, e_{n-k}] &= (-1)^{k+1}e_{n},\;\; k=1, \ldots, n. \end{align*} Then \(\mathfrak g_n\) is a rational filiform derivationally nilpotent Lie algebra of dimension \(n\) (Lemma 6.3 and Lemma 6.4). Let \(\mathfrak{r}_n=\mathbb{R}\otimes \mathfrak{g}_n=\mathbb{R}-\mathrm{span}\{e_1, \ldots, e_n\}\) and let \(R_n\) be the connected simply connected nilpotent Lie group with Lie algebra \(\mathfrak{r}_n\). Let \(\Gamma\) be the unique (up to commensurability) cocompact discrete subgroup of \(R_n\) such that \(\mathfrak g_n=\mathbb{Q}-\mathrm{span}\{\operatorname{Log} \Gamma\}\). In the paper under review, the author, by Theorem 6.1, shows that \(\Gamma\) is not geometrically equivalent to its Malcev's closure \(\sqrt{\Gamma}=\{g\in R_n:\, \exists k\ge 1, g^k\in \Gamma\}\) (We recall that a divisible torsion-free nilpotent group \(H\) is called a Malcev's closure (or a divisible closure) of \(\Gamma\) if it contains \(\Gamma\) but has no proper divisible subgroups containing \(\Gamma\)). This has the following important consequence (Theorem 1.2): For each odd dimension \(n\ge 7\), there is a finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent group of Hirsch rank \(n\) and nilpotence degree \(n-1\), which is not geometrically equivalent to its Malcev's closure.