English

Free-by-cyclic groups are conjugacy separable

Group Theory 2026-04-22 v2

Abstract

We show that all finitely generated free-by-cyclic groups are conjugacy separable: if a finitely generated group GG surjects onto Z\mathbb{Z} with free kernel, then for every pair of non-conjugate elements g,hGg,h\in G, there exists a finite quotient α:GQ\alpha:G\twoheadrightarrow Q such that α(g)\alpha(g) is not conjugate to α(h)\alpha(h). This resolves Question 19.41 of the Kourovka Notebook. We apply this to prove that the outer automorphism group of a finitely generated free-by-cyclic group is residually finite. Along the way we prove that if the monodromy of a {finitely generated free}-by-cyclic group is polynomially growing, then the double cosets of a cyclic subgroup are separable. Our approach combines vertex fillings in graph-of-groups decompositions, and Dehn fillings in relatively hyperbolic groups, according to the different geometric regimes in free-by-cyclic groups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.22346,
  title  = {Free-by-cyclic groups are conjugacy separable},
  author = {François Dahmani and Sam Hughes and Monika Kudlinska and Nicholas Touikan},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.22346},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

v2: this is a significant improvement of our original result (v1) which only deals with the case of polynomially growing monodromies

R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:58:49.209Z