Engulfing in word-hyperbolic groups (Q698686)

A group is said to be residually finite if the intersection of its finite index subgroups is trivial. It is an open question whether or not every word hyperbolic group is residually finite. \textit{D. D. Long} introduced [in Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 308, No. 2, 849-859 (1988; Zbl 0664.57001)], the following Definition: A subgroup \(H\) in a group \(G\) is said to be engulfed if \(H\) is contained in a proper finite index subgroup of \(G\). Long used this property as a hypothesis to prove residual finiteness of some Kleinian groups. In the paper under review, the authors obtain the following Theorem 1: Let \(G\) be a word hyperbolic group and suppose that \(G\) engulfs every finitely generated free subgroup whose limit set is a proper subset of the boundary of \(G\). Then the intersection of all finite index subgroups of \(G\) is finite. In the case where \(G\) is torsion free, then it is residually finite. Theorem 2: Let \(G\) be a word hyperbolic group which engulfs every finitely generated subgroup whose limit set is a proper subset of the boundary of \(G\). Then every quasi-convex subgroup of \(G\) has finite index in its profinite closure in \(G\). The authors also prove that every non-elementary word hyperbolic group contains subgroups which are not engulfed.