English

Infinite-dimensional general linear groups are groups of universally finite width

Group Theory 2007-05-23 v2

Abstract

Recently George Bergman proved that the symmetric group of an infinite set possesses the following property which we call by the {\it universality of finite width}: given any generating set XX of the symmetric group of an infinite set Ω,\Omega, there is a uniform bound kNk \in \N such that any permutation σSym(Ω)\sigma \in \text{Sym}(\Omega) is a product of at most kk elements of XX1,X \cup X^{-1}, or, in other words, Sym(Ω)=(X±1)k.\text{Sym}(\Omega)=(X^{\pm 1})^k. Bergman also formulated a sort of general conjecture stating that `the automorphism groups of structures that can be put together out of many isomorphic copies of themselves' might be groups of universally finite width and particularly mentioned, in this respect, infinite-dimensional linear groups. In this note we confirm Bergman's conjecture for infinite-dimensional linear groups over division rings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0403223,
  title  = {Infinite-dimensional general linear groups are groups of universally finite width},
  author = {Vladimir Tolstykh},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0403223},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

Some typos and mistakes in the style files were corrected

R2 v1 2026-07-22T17:03:22.399Z