Virtually free pro-\(p\) groups. (Q384270)

Let \(p\) be a prime, and let \(G\) be a pro-\(p\) group with an open, free pro-\(p\) subgroup, that is, \(G\) is a virtually free pro-\(p\) group. \textit{J.-P. Serre} showed in 1965 [Topology 3, 413-420 (1965; Zbl 0136.27402)] that if \(G\) is torsion-free, then it is itself free pro-\(p\). The main goal of the paper under review is to give a description of virtually free pro-\(p\) groups, without any torsion assumption. It is shown that a finitely generated pro-\(p\) group \(G\), which contains a free open subgroup \(F\), is the fundamental pro-\(p\) group of a finite graph of finite \(p\)-groups of order bounded by the index of \(F\) in \(G\). (The authors provide an example to show that this does not hold in general for pro-\(p\) groups that are not finitely generated.) The corresponding result for discrete groups was proved by \textit{A. Karrass, A. Pietrovski} and \textit{D. Solitar} [J. Aust. Math. Soc. 16, 458-466 (1973; Zbl 0299.20024)]. The latter paper uses a result of \textit{J. Stallings} [Appl. Categorical Algebra, Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 17, 124-128 (1970; Zbl 0247.20056)], which states that every finitely generated, virtually free group splits as an amalgamated free product of HNN-extensions over a finite group. Since a result like Stallings's is not available for pro-\(p\) groups, the authors employ combinatorial pro-\(p\) group methods and results on \(p\)-adic representations of finite \(p\)-groups to show that a finitely generated virtually free pro-\(p\) group is either a non-trivial amalgamated free pro-\(p\) product with finite amalgamating subgroup, or a non-trivial HNN-extension with finite associated subgroups. The authors also discuss the relations between their results and a result of \textit{V. A. Roman'kov} [Sib. Math. J. 34, No. 4, 727-732 (1993); translation from Sib. Mat. Zh. 34, No. 4, 153-159 (1993; Zbl 0824.20031)] on the automorphism group of a finitely generated, free pro-\(p\) group.