AN UPPER BOUND FOR THE GROWTH OF CONJUGACY CLASSES IN TORSION-FREE WORD HYPERBOLIC GROUPS (Q4824693)

Let \(\Gamma\) be a finitely generated group equipped with a finite generating set \(S\). For \(\gamma\) in \(\Gamma\), its word length with respect to \(S\) is denoted by \(|\gamma|\). The length \(\ell(c)\) of a conjugacy class \(c\in\Gamma\) is defined as \(\ell(\gamma)=\min_{\gamma\in c}|\gamma|\). An element \(\gamma\in\Gamma\) is said to be primitive if it cannot be written as a power \(\gamma=\alpha^m\) with \(m\geq 2\). A conjugacy class is said to be primitive if it consists of primitive elements. For \(n\geq 0\), \(\pi_n\) denotes the number of primitive conjugacy classes \(c\) in \(\Gamma\) with \(\ell(c)\leq n\). In the case where \(\Gamma\) is a non-elementary word hyperbolic group, the exponential growth rate of \((\Gamma,S)\) is equal to \[ h=\lim_{n\to\infty}\tfrac{\log\pi_n}n. \] (This formula for the exponential growth rate is contained in a previous result of the same authors [\textit{M. Coornaert} and \textit{G. Knieper}, Geom. Funct. Anal. 12, No. 3, 464-478 (2002; Zbl 1042.20031)].) The main result of the paper under review is the following Theorem: Let \(\Gamma\) be a torsion-free non-elementary word hyperbolic group, let \(S\) be a finite generating set for \(\Gamma\) and let \(h\) denote the exponential growth rate of \((\Gamma,S)\). Then there are positive constants \(A\), \(B\) and \(n_0\) such that \[ A\tfrac{e^{hn}}n\leq\pi_n\leq B\tfrac{e^{hn}}n\quad\text{for all }n\geq n_0. \] This theorem improves results of the authors obtained in the paper cited above.