Counting embeddings of free groups into \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z}) and its subgroups

Abstract: We show that if one selects uniformly independently and identically distributed matrices

A_{1}, l d o t s, A_{s} i n m a t h r m {S L}_{2} (m a t h b b Z)

from a ball of large radius

X

then with probability at least

1 - X^{- 1 + o (1)}

the matrices

A_{1}, l d o t s, A_{s}

are free generators for a free subgroup of

m a t h r m {S L}_{2} (m a t h b b Z)

. Furthermore, to show the flexibility of our method we do similar counting for matrices from the congruence subgroup

G a m m a_{0} (Q)

uniformly with respect to the positive integer

Q l e X

. This improves and generalises a result of E. Fuchs and I. Rivin (2017) which claims that the probability is

1 + o (1)

. We also disprove one of the statements in their work that has been used to deduce their claim.

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