Subgroups of direct products of limit groups. (Q972568)

Limit groups can be described in geometric terms as those finitely generated groups that have a Cayley graph in which each ball of finite radius is isometric to a ball of the same radius in some Cayley graph of a free group of fixed rank. They can also be described in algebraic terms, as the finitely generated groups \(L\) that are `fully residually free', meaning that for any finite subset \(T\subset L\) there exists a homomorphism from \(L\) to a free group that is injective on \(T\). These groups were extensively studied by Kharlampovich and Myasnikov. The main result of the paper under review is that if \(\Gamma_1,\dots,\Gamma_n\) are limit groups and \(S\subset\Gamma_1\times\cdots\times\Gamma_n\) is a subgroup of type \(\mathrm{FP}_n(\mathbb{Q})\), then \(S\) contains a subgroup of finite index that is itself a direct product of at most \(n\) limit groups. This answers a question by Sela. Combining this result with other known results, the authors deduce the fact that every residually free group of type \(\mathrm{FP}_\infty(\mathbb{Q})\) is virtually a direct product of a finite number of limit groups.