Quantifying lawlessness in finitely generated groups

DOI10.1515/JGTH-2022-0113MaRDI QIDQ6187037zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Publication date 10 January 2024

Published in Journal of Group Theory (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.08875

Generators, relations, and presentations of groups (20F05) Word problems, other decision problems, connections with logic and automata (group-theoretic aspects) (20F10) Asymptotic properties of groups (20F69)

Abstract: We introduce a quantitative notion of lawlessness for finitely generated groups, encoded by the "lawlessness growth function"

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a} : m a t h b b N i g h t a r r o w m a t h b b N

. We show that

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a}

is bounded iff

G a m m a

has a nonabelian free subgroup. By contrast we construct, for any nondecreasing unbounded function

f : m a t h b b N i g h t a r r o w m a t h b b N

, an elementary amenable lawless groups for which

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a}

grows more slowly that

f

. We produce torsion lawless groups for which

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a}

is at least linear using Golod-Shafarevich theory, and give some upper bounds on

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a}

for Grigorchuk's group and Thompson's group

m a t h b f F

. We note some connections between

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a}

and quantitative versions of residual finiteness. Finally, we also describe a function

m a t h c a l M_{G a m m a}

quantifying the property of

G a m m a

having no mixed identities, and give bounds for nonabelian free groups. By contrast with

m a t h c a l A_{G a m m a}

, there are no groups for which

m a t h c a l M_{G a m m a}

is bounded: we prove a universal lower bound on

m a t h c a l M_{G a m m a} (n)

of the order of

l o g (n)

.

Review text

Let \(\Gamma\) be a group. A law for \(\Gamma\) is a non-trivial word map which vanishes identically on \(\Gamma\), the group \(\Gamma\) is lawless if it has no laws. Let \(S\) be a finite generating set of \(\Gamma\) and let \(w\) be a non-trivial reduced word which is not a law for \(\Gamma\). The complexity of \(w\) in \(\Gamma\) is the minimal length of a tuple in \(\Gamma\) not evaluating to the identity under \(w\) (where the length of a tuple of elements of \(\Gamma\) is the sum of the lengths of those elements in the word metric induced by \(S\)). The lawlessness growth function \(\mathcal{A}_{\Gamma}^{S}: \mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb{N}\) sends \(n \in \mathbb{N}\) to the maximal complexity occurring among the words of length at most \(n\). In the paper under review, the author proves that \(\mathcal{A}_{\Gamma}\) is bounded if and only if \(\Gamma\) has a non-abelian free subgroup and he constructs, for any nondecreasing unbounded function \(f: \mathbb{N} \rightarrow \mathbb{N}\), an elementary amenable lawless group \(\Gamma\) for which \(\mathcal{A}_{\Gamma}\) grows more slowly than \(f\). Furthermore, he shows examples of torsion lawless groups \(\Gamma\) for which \(\mathcal{A}_{\Gamma}\) is at least linear using Golod-Shafarevich theory and he gives some upper bounds on \(\mathcal{A}_{\Gamma}\) for Grigorchuk's group and Thompson's group \(\mathbf{F}\).

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