English

On the subdirect product of graph bundles

Combinatorics 2026-03-31 v1 Algebraic Topology Group Theory

Abstract

The subdirect product of two finite groups AA and BB is defined as a subgroup of the direct product A×BA \times B, which is a well-known notion in finite group theory. While it is clear that, under appropriate choices of sets of generators SS, SAS_A and SBS_B, the Cayley graph Cay(A×B,S)Cay(A \times B, S) corresponds to the Cartesian product Cay(A,SA)Cay(B,SB)Cay(A, S_A) \square Cay(B, S_B) of two graphs, there is no analogue at the level of graph product that reflects the notion of subdirect product of groups. This is precisely the problem which we discuss here. By using the concept of graph bundles and the corresponding pullbacks, we introduce an operation on graph bundles such that the Cayley graph of the subdirect product of two groups can be described as the total space of the product of the Cayley graphs. This allows us to define the so-called ``network KK-theory group of a graph'', inspired by the notion of topological KK-theory, and we are able to investigate an interesting functor from the category of graphs to the category of abelian groups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.14530,
  title  = {On the subdirect product of graph bundles},
  author = {Yanga Bavuma and Francesco G. Russo and Stefano Spessato},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.14530},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Part of a series of works on the topic; 27pp