English

Profinite rigidity for free-by-cyclic groups with centre

Group Theory 2025-07-22 v1

Abstract

A free-by-cyclic group FNϕZF_N\rtimes_\phi\mathbb{Z} has non-trivial centre if and only if [ϕ][\phi] has finite order in Out(FN){\rm{Out}}(F_N). We establish a profinite ridigity result for such groups: if Γ1\Gamma_1 is a free-by-cyclic group with non-trivial centre and Γ2\Gamma_2 is a finitely generated free-by-cyclic group with the same finite quotients as Γ1\Gamma_1, then Γ2\Gamma_2 is isomorphic to Γ1\Gamma_1. One-relator groups with centre are similarly rigid. We prove that finitely generated free-by-(finite cyclic) groups are profinitely rigid in the same sense; the proof revolves around a finite poset fsc(G)\mathbf{fsc}(G) that carries information about the centralisers of finite subgroups of GG -- it is a complete invariant for these groups. These results provide contrasts with the lack of profinite rigidity among surface-by-cyclic groups and (free abelian)-by-cyclic groups, as well as general virtually-free groups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.20513,
  title  = {Profinite rigidity for free-by-cyclic groups with centre},
  author = {Martin R. Bridson and Paweł Piwek},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.20513},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

29 pages, 6 figures. Comments welcome!

R2 v1 2026-06-28T19:02:40.181Z