Quantifying lawlessness in finitely generated groups

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)

.

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