English

Equations in acylindrically hyperbolic groups and verbal closedness

Group Theory 2019-03-20 v2

Abstract

We describe solutions of the equation xnym=anbmx^ny^m=a^nb^m in acylindrically hyperbolic groups (AH-groups), where a,ba,b are non-commensurable special loxodromic elements and n,mn,m are integers with sufficiently large common divisor. Using this description and certain test words in AH-groups, we study the verbal closedness of AH-subgroups in groups. A subgroup HH of a group GG is called verbally closed if for any word w(x1,,xn)w(x_1,\dots, x_n) in variables x1,,xnx_1,\dots,x_n and any element hHh\in H, the equation w(x1,,xn)=hw(x_1,\dots, x_n)=h has a solution in GG if and only if it has a solution in HH. Main Theorem: Suppose that GG is a finitely presented group and HH is a finitely generated acylindrically hyperbolic subgroup of GG such that HH does not have nontrivial finite normal subgroups. Then HH is verbally closed in GG if and only if HH is a retract of GG. The condition that GG is finitely presented and HH is finitely generated can be replaced by the condition that GG is finitely generated over HH and HH is equationally Noetherian. As a corollary, we solve Problem 5.2 from the paper arXiv:1201.0497v2 of Miasnikov and Roman'kov: Verbally closed subgroups of torsion-free hyperbolic groups are retracts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1805.08071,
  title  = {Equations in acylindrically hyperbolic groups and verbal closedness},
  author = {Oleg Bogopolski},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.08071},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

79 pages, 17 figures. New: Main theorems are more general. Problem 5.2 from the paper of Myasnikov and Roman'kov is solved in full generality. New introduction. Appendix added

R2 v1 2026-06-23T02:02:43.554Z