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We establish several results on the word problem for just infinite groups. First, for finitely generated just infinite groups we show that the word problem is uniformly decidable for presentations with recursively enumerable sets of…

In this note we study sets of normal generators of finitely presented residually $p$-finite groups. We show that if an infinite, finitely presented, residually $p$-finite group $G$ is normally generated by $g_1,\dots,g_k$ with order…

Residual finiteness growth gives an invariant that indicates how well-approximated a finitely generated group is by its finite quotients. We briefly survey the state of the subject. We then improve on the best known upper and lower bounds…

Let $\Delta$ be a finite set and $G$ be a subgroup of $\operatorname{Sym}(\Delta)$. An irredundant base for $G$ is a sequence of points of $\Delta$ yielding a strictly descending chain of pointwise stabilisers, terminating with the trivial…

Let $G\leq{\rm Sym}(\Omega)$ be transitive. Then $G$ is called \textit{elusive} on $\Omega$ if it has no fixed point free element of prime order. The \textit{$2$-closure} of $G$, denoted by $G^{(2),\Omega}$, is the largest subgroup of ${\rm…

For an element $g$ of a group $G$, a right Engel sink of $g$ is a subset of $G$ containing all sufficiently long commutators $[...[[g ,x],x],\dots ,x]$ for all $x\in G$. A left Engel sink of $g$ is a subset of $G$ containing all…

We prove that if the average of the degrees of the irreducible characters of a finite group $G$ is less than 16/5, then $G$ is solvable. This solves a conjecture of I.M. Isaacs, M. Loukaki, and the first author. We discuss related…

In "On the asymptotics of the growth of 2-step nilpotent groups" (J. London Math. Soc. (2), 58 (1998)), we remarked that, contrary to 2-step nilpotent simply connected Lie groups, in 3-step nilpotent simply connected Lie groups it is…

We prove that for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$ and $\delta>0$ there exists a word $w_n \in F_2$ of length $n^{2/3} \log(n)^{3+\delta}$ which is a law for every finite group of order at most $n$. This improves upon the main result of [A. Thom,…

A subset $S$ of a group $G$ invariably generates $G$ if $G= \langle s^{g(s)} | s \in S\rangle$ for every choice of $g(s) \in G,s \in S$. We say that a group $G$ is invariably generated if such $S$ exists, or equivalently if $S=G$ invariably…

Building on work of Wilson, we show that if $G$ is a finitely generated residually soluble group whose growth function $\gamma$ satisfies $(\log \gamma(n))/ n^{1/4} \to 0$ as $n \to \infty$ then $G$ is virtually nilpotent. This shows that…

A finite subgroup of $GL(n,\mathbb C)$ is involutory if the sum of the dimensions of its irreducible complex representations is given by the number of absolute involutions in the group. A uniform combinatorial model is constructed for all…

Let A be an infinite set of generators for a group G, and let L_A(r) denote the number of elements of G whose word length with respect to A is exactly r. The purpose of this note is to determine all growth functions L_A(r) associated to…

Let N be a minimal normal nonabelian subgroup of a finite group G. We will show that there exists a nontrivial irreducible character of N of degree at least 5 which is extendible to G. This result will be used to settle two open questions…

The question of whether or not all finitely presented groups are semistable at infinity has been studied for over 40 years. In 1986, we defined what it means for a finitely generated group to be semistable at infinity - in analogy with the…

A subset $\{g_1, \ldots , g_d\}$ of a finite group $G$ invariably generates $G$ if $\{g_1^{x_1}, \ldots , g_d^{x_d}\}$ generates $G$ for every choice of $x_i \in G$. The Chebotarev invariant $C(G)$ of $G$ is the expected value of the random…

We study the complex irreducible representations of special linear, symplectic, orthogonal and unitary groups over principal ideal local rings of length two. We construct a canonical correspondence between the irreducible representations of…

We investigate language generation in the limit - a model by Kleinberg and Mullainathan [NeurIPS 2024] and extended by Li, Raman, and Tewari [COLT 2025]. While Kleinberg and Mullainathan proved generation is possible for all countable…

We construct a finitely presented (two-sided) totally orderable group with insoluble word problem.

Let $G$ be a finite group and ${\rm cd}(G)$ will be the set of the degrees of the complex irreducible characters of $G$. Also let ${\rm cod}(G)$ be the set of codegrees of the irreducible characters of $G$. The Taketa problem conjectures if…