Directed diagrammatic reducibility

DOI10.1016/J.TOPOL.2020.107307MaRDI QIDQ2215633zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Stephan Rosebrock, Jens Harlander

Publication date 14 December 2020

Published in Topology and its Applications (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.04653

2-complex asphericity diagrammatic reducibility group-presentation weight test

Cancellation theory of groups; application of van Kampen diagrams (20F06) 2-dimensional topology (including mapping class groups of surfaces, Teichmüller theory, curve complexes, etc.) (57K20) Fundamental group, presentations, free differential calculus (57M05)

Abstract: We introduce the notion of directed diagrammatic reducibility which is a relative version of diagrammatic reducibility. Directed diagrammatic reducibility has strong group theoretic and topological consequences. A multi-relator version of the Freiheitssatz in the presence of directed diagrammatic reducibility is given. Results concerning asphericity and

p i_{1}

-injectivity of subcomplexes are shown. We generalize the Corson-Trace characterization of diagrammatic reducibility to directed diagrammatic reducibility. We compare diagrammatic reducibility of relative presentations to directed diagrammatic reducibility. Classical tools for showing diagrammatic reducibility, such as the weight test, the max/min test, and small cancellation techniques are adapted to directed diagrammatic reducibility. The paper ends with some applications to labeled oriented trees.

Review text

For context, we first review the main definition of interest in the paper. It is simple to reduce a word in a free group by cancelling adjacent generators with opposite sign. Thinking of the free group as a labeled graph (\(1\)-complex), we see that any trivial word (loop of edges labeled via a map into the free group) must have some edge adjacent to an edge with opposite label. If any word has this property, then actually the graph is a tree, and the group is trivial. The situation is more complicated when we consider the question of when \(\pi_2(K)=0\) for a \(2\)-complex \(K\). A combinatorial condition implying \(\pi_2(K)=0\) is diagrammatic reducibility: the requirement that any combinatorial map of a \(2\)-sphere into \(K\) has some edge at which the two incident \(2\)-cells map to the same \(2\)-cell in \(K\) with opposite orientation (a ``folding edge). Directed diagrammatic reducibility is a relative version of diagrammatic reducibility, most easily stated when the \(K\) is a presentation complex of a group. If \(S\) is a subset of generators in a presentation \(P\), and \(P_S\) is the sub-presentation, and \(K(P), K(P_S)\) the associated two-complexes, then \(P\) is diagrammatically reducible directed away from \(S\) if every spherical diagram over \(K(P)\) that is not a diagram over \(K(P_S)\) contains a folding edge with a label in the complement of \(S\). In other words, any spherical diagram which maps ``outside of \(K(P_S)\) can be reduced. This paper develops the theory of directed diagrammatic reducibility and places it in the context of similar notions such as diagrammatic reducibility of relative presentations. Also, some applications are given, such as to small-cancellation groups. It should be of interest to anyone working in combinatorial group theory or related fields, as the discussion and arguments are accessible and motivated.

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