Subgroups of Bestvina-Brady groups (Q6924567)

This paper extends the classical characterization by \textit{C.~Droms} [J. Algebra 110, 519--522 (1987; Zbl 0625.20026)] of right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs) whose subgroups are all RAAGs to the setting of Bestvina-Brady groups. These groups, defined as kernels of length characters \(\chi_{\Gamma}\colon G_\Gamma \to \mathbb{Z}\) on RAAGs, provide important examples in geometric group theory.\N\NThe main result (Theorem 2.8) establishes that for a finite connected graph \(\Gamma\), every subgroup of the Bestvina-Brady group \(B_\Gamma\) is a RAAG if and only if \(\Gamma\) is a tree of Droms graphs, obtained by connected sums of Droms graphs at vertices. Equivalently, \(\Gamma\) must be chordal and exclude two specific induced subgraphs: the gem \(\nabla\) and the overlapping-gems graph \(\overline{H}\).\N\NTheorem 2.8 confirms several Galois-theoretic conjectures for pro-\(p\) Bestvina-Brady groups, showing that \(B_{\Gamma,p} \cong G_K(p)\) for suitable fields \(K\) precisely when \(\Gamma\) is a tree of Droms graphs.