Automatic groups: A guided tour

MaRDI QIDQ1803625zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Benson Farb

Publication date 29 June 1993

Published in L'Enseignement Mathématique. 2e Série (Search for Journal in Brave)

zbMATH Keywords

automatic groupsbraid groupsCayley graphcompact manifoldfinitely generated groupfundamental grouphyperbolic groupsmapping class groups

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Free products of groups, free products with amalgamation, Higman-Neumann-Neumann extensions, and generalizations (20E06) Generators, relations, and presentations of groups (20F05) Word problems, other decision problems, connections with logic and automata (group-theoretic aspects) (20F10) Fundamental groups and their automorphisms (group-theoretic aspects) (20F34) Geometric group theory (20F65) Fundamental group, presentations, free differential calculus (57M05)

Review text

This paper is a useful survey on the theory of automatic groups, which has been developed by Thurston et al. It contains self-contained definitions and a few historical remarks. The author explains how that theory grew out of the desire to understand the structure of a finitely generated group by studying the geometry of its Cayley graph. The paper contains also a list of examples and non-examples, with sometimes ideas of proofs. In particular, there is a detailed proof of a result due to Cannon, which asserts that the fundamental group of a compact manifold with strictly negative curvature is automatic. Finally, the paper contains a list of 12 interesting open problems. The reader should be aware of the fact that problem number 1, conjecturing that mapping class groups of surfaces of negative Euler characteristic are automatic (a conjecture due to Thurston) has been solved a couple of years ago by Lee Mosher.

Recommendations

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 53661
• From automatic structures to automatic groups.
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Cited in

(13)

• Generic-case complexity, decision problems in group theory, and random walks.
• Higher rank lamplighter groups are graph automatic
• From automatic structures to automatic groups.
• Lamplighter groups and automata
• Groups defined by automata
• On the width of regular classes of finite structures
• Automatically presented groups.
• Some new biautomatic Coxeter groups.
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 67433 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 848084 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1419250 (Why is no real title available?)
• The Development of the Theory of Automatic Groups
• Average-case complexity and decision problems in group theory.

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