Related papers: On commutator length in free groups

The commutator length $cl_G(g)$ of an element $g \in [G,G]$ in the commutator subgroup of a group $G$ is the least number of commutators needed to express $g$ as their product. If $G$ is a non-abelian free groups, then given an integer $n…

We give an algorithm to compute stable commutator length in free products of cyclic groups which is polynomial time in the length of the input, the number of factors, and the orders of the finite factors. We also describe some experimental…

Every word $w$ in a free group naturally induces a probability measure on every compact group $G$. For example, if $w=\left[x,y\right]$ is the commutator word, a random element sampled by the $w$-measure is given by the commutator…

Elements of the commutator subgroup of a free group can be presented as values of canonical forms, called Wicks forms. We show that, starting from sufficiently high genus g, there is a sequence of words w(g) which can be presented by f(g)…

Let $F$ be a finitely generated free group, and let $H\le F$ be a finitely generated subgroup. An equation for an element $g\in F$ with coefficients in $H$ is an element $w(x)\in H*\langle x \rangle$ such that $w(g)=1$ in $F$; the degree of…

For the free group $F_r$ on $r>1$ generators (respectively, the free product $G_1 * G_2$ of two nontrivial finite groups $G_1$ and $G_2$), we obtain the asymptotic for the number of conjugacy classes of commutators in $F_r$ (respectively,…

For any group, there is a natural (pseudo-)norm on the vector space B1 of real (group) 1-boundaries, called the stable commutator length norm. This norm is closely related to, and can be thought of as a relative version of, the Gromov…

We revisit the problem of deciding whether a finitely generated subgroup H is a free factor of a given free group F. Known algorithms solve this problem in time polynomial in the sum of the lengths of the generators of H and exponential in…

We show that the compressed word problem in a finitely-generated fully residually free group (F -group) is decidable in polynomial time, and use the result to show that the word problem in the automorphism group of such a group is decidable…

We combine concepts from random matrix theory and free probability together with ideas from the theory of commutator length in groups and maps from surfaces, and establish new connections between the two. More particularly, we study…

Given groups $A$ and $B$, what is the minimal commutator length of the 2020th (for instance) power of an element $g\in A*B$ not conjugate to elements of the free factors? The exhaustive answer to this question is still unknown, but we can…

We present efficient computational solutions to the problems of checking equality, performing multiplication, and computing minimal representatives of elements of free bands. A band is any semigroup satisfying the identity $x ^ 2 \approx x$…

Given a free product of groups $G = {\large *}_{j \in J} A_j$ and a natural number $n$, what is the minimal possible commutator length of an element $g^n \in G$ not conjugate to elements of the free factors? We give an exhaustive answer to…

The palindromic length of a finite word $w$ is defined as the minimal number of palindromes such that their product is $w$. Clearly, this function may take different values depending on if we consider $w$ as an element a free semigroup or…

Let $F$ be a free group of rank $r$ and fix some $w\in F$. For any compact group $G$ we can define a measure $\mu_{w,G}$ on $G$ by (Haar-)uniformly sampling $g_1,...,g_r\in G$ and evaluating $w(g_1,...,g_r)$. In [arXiv:1802.04862], Magee…

Let w be a multilinear commutator and n a positive integer. Suppose that G is a residually finite group in which every product of at most 896 w-values has order dividing n. Then the verbal subgroup w(G) is locally finite.

Let F_2 be the free group generated by x and y. In this article, we prove that the commutator of x^m and y^n is a product of two squares if and only if mn is even. We also show using topological methods that there are infinitely many…

The width $\wid(G,W)$ of the verbal subgroup $v(G,W)$ of a group $G$ defined by a collection of group words $W$ is the smallest number $m$ in $\mathbb N \cup {+\infty}$ such that every element of $v(G,W)$ is can be represented as the…

The Whitehead minimization problem consists in finding a minimum size element in the automorphic orbit of a word, a cyclic word or a finitely generated subgroup in a finite rank free group. We give the first fully polynomial algorithm to…

Every word $w$ in the free group $F_r$ of rank $r$ induces a probability measure (the $w$-measure) on every compact group $G$, by substitution of Haar-random $G$-elements in the letters. This measure is determined by its Fourier…