The conjugacy problem for UPG elements of $Out(F_n)$
Group Theory
2025-07-02 v3
Abstract
An element of the outer automorphism group of the rank free group is {\it polynomially growing} if the word lengths of conjugacy classes in grow at most polynomially under iteration by . It is {\it unipotent} if additionally its action on the first homology of with integer coefficients is unipotent. In particular, if is polynomially growing and acts trivially on first homology with coefficients the integers mod 3 then is unipotent and also every polynomially growing element has a positive power that is unipotent. We solve the conjugacy problem in for the subset of unipotent elements. Specifically, there is an algorithm that decides if two such are conjugate in .
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1906.04147,
title = {The conjugacy problem for UPG elements of $Out(F_n)$},
author = {Mark Feighn and Michael Handel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.04147},
year = {2025}
}