English

A finitary version of Gromov's polynomial growth theorem

Group Theory 2010-04-09 v2 Metric Geometry

Abstract

We show that for some absolute (explicit) constant CC, the following holds for every finitely generated group GG, and all d>0d >0: If there is some R0>exp(exp(CdC)) R_0 > \exp(\exp(Cd^C)) for which the number of elements in a ball of radius R0R_0 in a Cayley graph of GG is bounded by R0dR_0^d, then GG has a finite index subgroup which is nilpotent (of step <Cd<C^d). An effective bound on the finite index is provided if "nilpotent" is replaced by 'polycyclic", thus yielding a non-trivial result for finite groups as well.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0910.4148,
  title  = {A finitary version of Gromov's polynomial growth theorem},
  author = {Yehuda Shalom and Terence Tao},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0910.4148},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

43 pages, no figures, to appear, GAFA. This is the final version; referee corrections have been incorporated, and some additional references added.