Counting conjugacy classes of subgroups in a finitely generated group. (Q952538)

The author obtains a new formula for the number of conjugacy classes of subgroups of a given index in an arbitrary finitely generated group \(\Gamma\). The restriction on \(\Gamma\) is only a simplifying restriction, all results remain valid for groups having only finitely many subgroups for each finite index, which is automatic for finitely generated groups. The result has applications in counting the number of nonequivalent surface coverings (Section 3 deals with this) and also in counting the number of unrooted maps and hypermaps on a surface. In Section 4, some applications of the main counting principle stated below are given, in counting nonequivalent coverings of a manifold whose fundamental group is finitely generated. Let \(\text{Epi}(K,\mathbb{Z}_l)\) denote the set of epimorphisms of a group \(K\) onto the cyclic group \(\mathbb{Z}_l\) of order \(l\) and let \(|E|\) be the cardinality of \(E\). The main counting principle is stated in Theorem 1: Let \(\Gamma\) be a finitely generated group. Then the number of conjugacy classes of subgroups of index \(n\) in the group \(\Gamma\) is given by the formula \[ c_n(\Gamma)=\frac 1n\sum_{l\mid n,\;lm=n}\sum_{K<_m\Gamma}|\text{Epi}(K,\mathbb{Z}_l)|, \] where the sum \(\sum_{K<_m\Gamma}\) is taken over all subgroups \(K\) of index \(m\) in the group \(\Gamma\).