Subgroups of direct products of elementarily free groups. (Q2370116)

A group \(G\) is called `elementarily free' if it has the same elementary theory as a free (noncommutative) group. The authors use homology groups of the trivial coefficient module \(\mathbb{Q}\) with the natural finiteness conditions \(\text{FP}_n(\mathbb{Q})\) in the following description of subgroups of direct products of elementarily free groups. Theorem. Let \(G_1,\dots,G_n\) be (subgroups of) elementarily free groups and let \(\Gamma\subseteq G_1\times\cdots\times G_n\) be a subgroup. Then \(\Gamma\) is of the type \(\text{FP}_n(\mathbb{Q})\) if and only if there are finitely generated subgroups \(H_i\subseteq G_i\) for \(i=1,\dots,n\) such that \(\Gamma\) is isomorphic to a subgroup of finite index in \(H_1\times\cdots\times H_n\). This statement provides a partial answer to a question by Sela who asked if a similar result holds in which ``elementarily free'' is replaced by ``limit groups''.