On accessibility of groups (Q797689)

The class of accessible groups is defined to be the smallest class of groups containing all groups with \(\leq 1\) end and being closed with respect to forming fundamental groups of finite graphs of groups with finite edge groups. The main result of this paper is Theorem 1. A finitely generated group with the property that its finite subgroups have bounded order is accessible. The proof of this reslt has the following pattern. An edge e of a graph of groups is said to be trivial, if its vertices x and y are distinct and the edge group \(G_ e\) coincides with one of the vertex groups \(G_ x\) or \(G_ y\). And a graph with no trivial edges is said to be minimal. It is shown that if \(G\neq 1\) is the fundamental group of a finite minimal graph \(\Gamma\) of groups with finite edge groups then the number \(d_{{\mathbb{Q}}G}(I_ G)\) of generators of the augmentation ideal \(I_ G=\ker({\mathbb{Q}}G\twoheadrightarrow {\mathbb{Q}})\) as a \({\mathbb{Q}}G\)-module satisfies the inequality \(2d_{{\mathbb{Q}}G}(I_ G)\geq 1+\sum_{e}1/| G_ e|,\) where e runs through the edges of \(\Gamma\). It is then shown, that an inaccessible group G can be expressed as the fundamental group of a finite minimal graph of groups with n edges for any integer \(n\geq 0\). So, if the finite subgroups of G have bounded order the inequality shows that \(d_{{\mathbb{Q}}G}(I_ G)=\infty\), which is impossible for finitely generated groups.