A tighter bound for the number of words of minimum length in an automorphic orbit. (Q855970)

Let \(F_n\) be the free group of rank \(n\). For a cyclic word \(w\) in \(F_n\) let \(\text{Orb}_{\Aut F_n}(w)=\{\varphi(w)\mid\varphi\in\Aut F_n\}\) be the automorphic orbit of \(w\). \textit{A. G. Myasnikov} and \textit{V. Shpilrain} [in J. Algebra 269, No. 1, 18-27 (2003; Zbl 1035.20019)] studied the cardinality of \(\text{Orb}_{\Aut F_n}(w)\). More precisely, if \(N(u)\) is the cardinality of the set \(\{v\in\text{Orb}_{\Aut F_n}(w):|v|=|u|\}\), they proved that \(N(u)\) is bounded by a polynomial function in \(|u|\) in \(F_2\) and conjectured that in \(F_n\) \(N(u)\) is bounded by a polynomial function of degree \(2n-3\) in \(|u|\). \textit{B. Khan} [in Computational and experimental group theory. Contemp. Math. 349, 115-196 (2004; Zbl 1078.20035)] proved this conjecture for \(F_2\) giving a sharp bound for \(N(u)\), and the author [in J. Algebra 301, No. 1, 35-58 (2006; Zbl 1100.20028)] proved that \(N(u)\) is bounded by a polynomial function of degree \(n(5n-7)/2\) in \(|u|\) in \(F_n\) under some restrictions. In the paper under review, the author proves the above conjecture under the same restrictions (Hypothesis 1.1 in the paper). Moreover, he proves that \(2n-3\) is a sharp bound for the degree of polynomials bounding \(N(u)\). The techniques used are the same as in the author's paper above and are based on Whitehead's algorithm which decides whether or not a given element of \(F_n\) is an automorphic image of another given element.