Ideals of equations for elements in a free group and Stallings folding

arXiv2207.04759MaRDI QIDQ6404590FDOQ6404590

Publication date: 11 July 2022

Abstract: Let

F

be a finitely generated free group and let

H l e F

be a finitely generated subgroup. Given an element

g i n F

, we study the ideal

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

of equations for

g

with coefficients in

H

, i.e. the elements

w (x) i n H * l a n g l e x a n g l e

such that

w (g) = 1

in

F

. The ideal

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

is a normal subgroup of

H * l a n g l e x a n g l e

, and we provide an algorithm, based on Stallings folding operations, to compute a finite set of generators for

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

as a normal subgroup. We provide an algorithm to find an equation in

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

with minimum degree, i.e. an equation

w (x)

such that its cyclic reduction contains the minimum possible number of occurrences of

x

and

x^{- 1}

; this answers a question of A. Rosenmann and E. Ventura. More generally, we provide an algorithm that, given

d i n m a t h b b N

, determines whether

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

contains equations of degree

d

or not, and we give a characterization of the set of all the equations of that specific degree. We define the set

D_{g}

of all integers

d

such that

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

contains equations of degree

d

; we show that

D_{g}

coincides, up to a finite set, either with the set of non-negative even numbers or with the set of natural numbers. Finally, we provide examples to illustrate the techniques introduces in this paper. We discuss the case where

e x t r a n k (H) = 1

. We prove that both kinds of sets

D_{g}

can actually occur. The examples also show that the equations of minimum possible degree aren't in general enough to generate the whole ideal

m a t h f r a k I_{g}

as a normal subgroup.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Free nonabelian groups (20E05) Geometric group theory (20F65) Algebraic geometry over groups; equations over groups (20F70)

This page was built for publication: Ideals of equations for elements in a free group and Stallings folding

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q6404590)