No label defined (Q4946066)

If \(\Gamma\) is a finitely generated group, let \(s_\Gamma(d)\) denote the number of subgroups of \(\Gamma\) of index \(d\). It is known that the number \(|\Hom(\Gamma,S_n)|\) of actions of \(\Gamma\) on a set of \(n\) elements is related to the numbers \(s_\Gamma(d)\) by the formula \(\sum_{n\geq 0}|\Hom(\Gamma,S_n)|z^n/n!=\exp\left(\sum_{d\geq 1}s_\Gamma(d)z^d/d\right)\). The paper under review is a survey, mostly without proofs (which have been or will be published elsewhere), of a series of results of the author giving a far-reaching generalization of the above formula, and several applications. The sequence of representation groups \(S_n\) is replaced by a sequence \(R_n\) of wreath products \(H\wr S_n\) or \(H\wr A_n\) for some fixed finite group \(H\), or groups closely related to wreath products, such as the Weyl groups of type \(D_n\). The main theorems of the paper show how to express the exponential generating function \(\sum_{n\geq 0}|\Hom(\Gamma,R_n)|z^n/n!\) of the numbers \(|\Hom(\Gamma,R_n)|\) in terms of structural invariants of \(\Gamma\). By specializing his formulas to the case \(\Gamma=C_m\), a cyclic group of order \(m\), where \(|\Hom(\Gamma,R_n)|\) can be interpreted as the number of solutions in \(R_n\) of the equation \(x^m=1\), the author quickly reproves some results of \textit{N.~Chigira} [J. Algebra 180, No.~3, 653-661 (1996; Zbl 0854.05006)]. The case where \(\Gamma\) is a finite Abelian \(2\)-group constitutes the first new application, and is much harder to deal with. The formulas obtained here are employed to produce an efficient algorithm for computing the Euler characteristic of certain Quillen complexes. Some techniques of complex analysis allow the author to obtain asymptotic estimates for the function \(|\Hom(G,R_n)|\), where \(G\) is a finite group. These estimates are then used to study the growth behaviour of the function \(s_\Gamma^H(n)=\sum_{|\Gamma:\Gamma^\prime|=n}|\Hom(\Gamma^\prime,H)|\), where \(\Gamma\) is a free product of finite or infinite cyclic groups. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0933.00033].