Related papers: Finding non-trivial elements and splittings in gro…

We establish a general criterion for the finite presentability of subdirect products of groups and use this to characterize finitely presented residually free groups. We prove that, for all $n\in\mathbb{N}$, a residually free group is of…

We study arithmetic properties of factorizations of elements into products of generators, in monoids given with explicit presentations. After relating and comparing this perspective to the more usual approach of factoring into products of…

A nontrivial element in a group is a generalized torsion element if some nonempty finite product of its conjugates is the identity. We prove that any generalized torsion element in a free product of torsion-free groups is conjugate to a…

It is a classical result that the direct product AxB of two groups is finitely generated (finitely presented) if and only if A and B are both finitely generated (finitely presented). This is also true for direct products of monoids, but not…

Let $G$ be a finite simple group of Lie type and let $P$ be a Sylow $2$-subgroup of $G$. In this paper, we prove that for any nontrivial element $x \in G$, there exists $g \in G$ such that $G = \langle P, x^g \rangle$. By combining this…

Let v and w be nontrivial words in two free groups. We prove that, for all sufficiently large finite non-abelian simple groups G, there exist subsets C of v(G) and D of w(G) of size such that every element of G can be realized in at least…

It is a well-known open problem since the 1970s whether a finitely generated perfect group can be normally generated by a single element or not. We prove that the topological version of this problem has an affirmative answer as long as we…

In 1973, Jim Wiegold introduced the concept of pseudocentre P(G) of a group G as the intersection of the normal closures of the centralizers of its elements. He proved that the pseudocentre of a non-trivial finite group is always…

We consider pairs of finitely presented, residually finite groups $P\hookrightarrow\G$ for which the induced map of profinite completions $\hat P\to \hat\G$ is an isomorphism. We prove that there is no algorithm that, given an arbitrary…

Given a finitely generated linear group $G$ over $\mathbb{Q}$, we construct a simple group $\Gamma$ that has the same finiteness properties as $G$ and admits $G$ as a quasi-retract. As an application, we construct a simple group of type…

We address the question: for which collections of finite simple groups does there exist an algorithm that determines the images of an arbitrary finitely presented group that lie in the collection? We prove both positive and negative…

We call a group $G$ {\it algorithmically finite} if no algorithm can produce an infinite set of pairwise distinct elements of $G$. We construct examples of recursively presented infinite algorithmically finite groups and study their…

Let $G$ be the fundamental group of a graph of finitely generated virtually free groups with virtually cyclic edge groups. We shaw that $G$ is cohomologically good if $G$ is residually finite. If $G$ is LERF, we prove that G splits…

Given any finitely presented group G we find a triangular algebra such that has two presentations, one with fundamental group G and another with trivial group. Thus proving that given a collection G1,...,Gn of finitely presented groups…

(1) We show that if a presentation of the trivial group is "hard to trivialize", in the sense that lots of Tietze moves are necessary to transform it into the trivial presentation, then the associated presentation complex (which is a…

We show that every definable group G in an o-minimal structure is definably finitely generated. That is, G contains a finite subset that is not included in any proper definable subgroup. This provides another proof, and a generalization to…

A group $G$ is said to be $\frac{3}{2}$-generated if every nontrivial element belongs to a generating pair. It is easy to see that if $G$ has this property then every proper quotient of $G$ is cyclic. In this paper we prove that the…

We show that the 42-element monoid of all partial order preserving and extensive injections on the 4-element chain is not contained in any variety generated by a finitely based finite $\mathcal{R}$-trivial semigroup. This provides unified…

Every finite simple group can be generated by two elements and, in fact, every nontrivial element is contained in a generating pair. Groups with this property are said to be $\frac{3}{2}$-generated, and the finite $\frac{3}{2}$-generated…

It is shown that a nontrivial normal subgroup $N$ of a group $G$ is a free factor of the $N$'s normal closure in the $G$'s free product with arbitrary nontrivial groups.