English

On the generic triangle group

Metric Geometry 2015-06-26 v2 Dynamical Systems Group Theory

Abstract

We introduce the concept of a generic Euclidean triangle τ\tau and study the group GτG_\tau generated by the reflection across the edges of τ\tau. In particular, we prove that the subgroup TτT_\tau of all translations in GτG_\tau is free abelian of infinite rank, while the index 2 subgroup HτH_\tau of all orientation preserving transformations in GτG_\tau is free metabelian of rank 2, with TτT_\tau as the commutator subgroup. As a consequence, the group GτG_\tau cannot be finitely presented and we provide explicit minimal infinite presentations of both HτH_\tau and GτG_\tau. This answers in the affirmative the problem of the existence of a minimal presentation for the free metabelian group of rank 2. Moreover, we discuss some examples of non-trivial relations in TτT_\tau holding for given non-generic triangles τ\tau.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1405.1881,
  title  = {On the generic triangle group},
  author = {Stefano Isola and Riccardo Piergallini},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1405.1881},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

21 pages, 6 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T04:09:01.847Z