Cyclically presented groups, lower central series and line arrangements (Q2630457)

This paper concerns the lower central series of groups defined by presentations generalizing braid monodromy presentations of fundamental groups of complements of complex hyperplane arrangements. The author defines a \textit{hyperplane group} to be a group with generators \(x_1, \ldots, x_n\) and relations of the form \[ R=R_{i_1, \ldots, i_t}: y_{i_t} \cdots \, y_{i_1} = y_{i_{t-1}} \cdots \, y_{i_1}y_{i_t} = \cdots = y_{i_1} y_{i_t}\cdots \, y_{i_2}, \] where \(1 \leq i_1 < \cdots < i_t \leq n\), \(y_{i_k}\) is a conjugate of \(x_{i_k}\) for each \(k\), and no pair of indices is involved in more than one such set of relations. Fundamental groups of arrangement complements (briefly, \textit{arrangement groups}) have such presentations, with generators corresponding to the hyperplanes and relations arising from codimension-two intersections. There are nonabelian hyperplane groups with \(t=2\) in all relations, as cannot occur for arrangement groups. If \(y_{i_k}=x_{i_k}\) for all \(k\) in all the given relations, the group is said to be \textit{cyclically-presented}. Let \(G=G_1 \supseteq \cdots \supseteq G_n \supseteq \cdots \) denote the lower central series of \(G\), and let \(\phi_k(G)\) denote the rank of \(G_k/G_{k+1}\). The main result of the paper is the equality \(\phi_k(G)=\sum_R \phi_k(F_{t-1})\) for a certain class of cyclically-presented arrangement groups. Here the sum is over all sets of relations \(R=R_{i_1, \ldots, i_t}\), and \(F_{t-1}\) is the free group of rank \(t-1\). The hypothesis on \(G\) is stated in terms of an associated graph \(\Gamma\) having vertices corresponding to the supports \(\{i_1, \ldots, i_t\}\) of the given relations \(R_{i_1, \ldots, i_t}\) with \(t \geq 3\), two such being adjacent when the corresponding supports have an element in common. The author first proves that \(G_2/G_3\) is unchanged if \(y_i\) is replaced by \(x_i\) in all relations, and concludes that \(\phi_2(G)=\sum_R \phi_2(F_{t-1})\), for any hyperplane group, as is the case for arrangement groups. Then, assuming \(G\) is cyclically-presented and \(\Gamma\) has at most one cycle, the author derives enough of a presentation of \(G_3/G_4\) to prove \(\phi_k(G)\leq \sum_R \phi_k(F_{t-1})\). The argument applies more generally, in particular when no pair of circuits in \(\Gamma\) have a vertex in common. Such a graph is necessarily planar. The proof is completed by showing that any cyclically-presented group with planar graph is an arrangement group, in which case the right-hand side is a well-known lower bound as well. This gives equality in case \(k=3\), which implies equality for all \(k\) by a result of S.~Papadima and A.~Suciu, again using that \(G\) is an arrangement group.