English

Proving the 5-Engel identity in the 2-generator group of exponent four

Combinatorics 2024-01-26 v1 Group Theory

Abstract

It is known that the fifth Engel word E5E_5 is trivial in the 2-generator group of exponent four B(2,4)B(2,4), and so can be written as a product of fourth powers. Explicit products of 250 and 28 powers are known, using fourth powers of words up to lengths four and ten respectively. Using a reduction technique based on the recursive enumerability of the set of trivial words in a finite presentation we were able to rewrite E5E_5 as a product of 26 fourth powers of words up to length five.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2401.13859,
  title  = {Proving the 5-Engel identity in the 2-generator group of exponent four},
  author = {Colin Ramsay},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2401.13859},
  year   = {2024}
}