Metabelian groups: full-rank presentations, randomness and Diophantine problems (Q831196)

Let \(F(A)=\langle A \rangle\) be a free group of rank \(n\) with basis (that is free generating set) \(A=\{a_{1},a_{2}, \ldots, a_{n}\}\). If \(\mathcal{V}\) is a variety of groups, then the largest quotient of \(F(A)\) which is in \(\mathcal{V}\) is denoted by \(F_{\mathcal{V}}(A)\). If \(R=\{ r_{1}, r_{2}, \ldots, r_{m} \}\) is a finite subset of \(F_{\mathcal{V}}(A)\), then the normal closure of \(\langle R \rangle\) in \(F_{\mathcal{V}}(A)\) is denoted by \(\langle \langle R \rangle \rangle\). The group \(G=\langle A \mid R \rangle_{\mathcal{V}}=F_{\mathcal{V}}(A)/\langle \langle R \rangle\rangle\) is the group with presentation \(\langle A \mid R \rangle\) in the variety \(\mathcal{V}\). The relation matrix \(M(A, R)\) of the presentation \(\langle A \mid R\rangle\) is an \(m \times n\) integral matrix whose \((i,j)\)-th entry is the sum of the exponents of the \(a_{j}\)'s that occur in \(r_{i}\). The matrix \(M(A, R)\) has full-rank if its rank is equal to \(\min \{|A|,|R|\}\), i.e., it is the maximum possible. The presentation \(\langle A \mid R \rangle\) has full-rank if \(M(A, R)\) has full-rank. In [J. Algebra 556, 1--34 (2020; Zbl 1471.20023)], the first author et al. proved that if a finitely generated nilpotent group \(G\) admits a full-rank presentation, then \(G\) is either virtually free nilpotent (if \(|A|-|R| \geq 2\)), or virtually cyclic (if \(|A|-|R|=1\)), or finite (if \(|A|-|R| \leq 0\)). In the paper under review, a similar result is proved for the variety \(\mathcal{M}\) of the metabelian groups. The two main results are. Theorem 1.1: Let \(G\) be a group given by a full-rank presentation \(G=\langle A \mid R \rangle_{\mathcal{M}}\). Then there exist two finitely generated subgroups \(H\) and \(K\) of \(G\) such that (1) \(H\) is a free metabelian group of rank \(\max \{|A|-|R|,0\}\); (2) \(K\) is a virtually abelian group with \(|R|\) generators, and its normal closure \(L=K^{G}\) is again virtually abelian; (3) \(G=\langle H, K \rangle=HL\). Moreover, there is an algorithm that, given \(\langle A \mid R\rangle_{\mathcal{M}}\), finds a free basis for \(H\) and a generating set in \(|R|\) generators for \(K\). Theorem 1.2: Let \(G=\langle A \mid R \rangle\) be a full-rank presentation such that \(|A| - |R| \geq 1\). Then, in any direct decomposition of \(G\), all but one of the direct factors are virtually abelian. The Diophantine problem \(\mathsf{D}(\mathcal{A})\) in an algebraic structure \(\mathcal{A}\) is the task to determine whether or not a given finite system of equations with constants in \(\mathcal{A}\) has a solution in \(\mathcal{A}\). \(\mathsf{D}(\mathcal{A})\) is decidable if there is an algorithm that, given a finite system \(S\) of equations with constants in \(\mathcal{A}\), decides whether or not \(S\) has a solution in \(\mathcal{A}\). Furthermore, \(\mathsf{D}(\mathcal{A})\) is reducible to \(\mathsf{D}(\mathcal{B})\) for another structure \(\mathcal{B}\) if there is an algorithm that, for any finite system of equations S in \(\mathcal{A}\), computes a finite system of equations \(S_{\mathcal{B}}\) in \(\mathcal{B}\) such that \(S\) has a solution in \(\mathcal{B}\) if and only if \(S_{\mathcal{B}}\) has a solution in \(\mathcal{B}\). To prove that \(\mathsf{D}(\mathcal{A})\) reduces to \(\mathsf{D}(\mathcal{B})\), it suffices to show that \(\mathcal{A}\) is interpretable by equations (or \(e\)-interpretable) in \(\mathcal{B}\). Due to the classical result of Matiyasevich, Robinson, Davis and Putnam (\textsf{MRDP} theorem), the Diophantine problem \(\mathsf{D}(\mathbb{Z})\) in the ring of integers \(\mathbb{Z}\) is undecidable (that is Hilbert's tenth problem is unsolvable). Theorem 1.3: Let \(G=\langle A \mid R \rangle_{\mathcal{M}}\) be a full-rank presentation, then the following hold. (1) If \(|A| - |R| \geq 2\), then \(\mathbb{Z}\) is \(e\)-interpretable in \(G\), and hence \(\mathsf{D}(G)\) is undecidable. (2) If \(|A|-|R| \leq 0\), then \(\mathsf{D}(G)\) is decidable (in fact, the first-order theory of \(G\) is decidable). Moreover, since finite presentations have full rank asymptotically almost surely, metabelian groups finitely presented in \(\mathcal{M}\) satisfy all the aforementioned theorems asymptotically almost surely.