Cyclically presented groups, lower central series and line arrangements (Q2630457)
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English | Cyclically presented groups, lower central series and line arrangements |
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Cyclically presented groups, lower central series and line arrangements (English)
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27 July 2016
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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.
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hyperplane arrangement
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fundamental group
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lower central series
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group presentation
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conjugation-free presentation
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decomposable arrangement
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