Related papers: On conciseness of words in profinite groups

We show that if $w$ is a multilinear commutator word and $G$ a finite group in which every metanilpotent subgroup generated by $w$-values is of rank at most $r$, then the rank of the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is bounded in terms of $r$ and $w$…

A word $w$ is concise in a class of groups $\mathcal{C}$ if, for every group $G$ in $\mathcal{C}$, the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is finite whenever $w$ takes only finitely many values in $G$. This notion can be naturally extended to…

The word $w=[x_{i_1},x_{i_2},\dots,x_{i_k}]$ is a simple commutator word if $k\geq 2, i_1\neq i_2$ and $i_j\in \{1,\dots,m\}$, for some $m>1$. For a finite group $G$, we prove that if $i_{1} \neq i_j$ for every $j\neq 1$, then the verbal…

Given a group-word w and a group G, the verbal subgroup w(G) is the one generated by all w-values in G. The word w is said to be concise if w(G) is finite whenever the set of w-values in G is finite. In the sixties P. Hall asked whether…

The study of verbal subgroups within a group is well-known for being an effective tool to obtain structural information about a group. Therefore, conditions that allow the classification of words in a free group are of paramount importance.…

Based on the notions of conciseness and semiconciseness, we show that these properties are not equivalent by proving that a word originally presented by Ol'shanskii is semiconcise but not concise. We further establish that every…

Let $m,n$ be positive integers and $w$ a multilinear commutator word. Assume that $G$ is a finite group having subgroups $G_1,\ldots,G_m$ whose union contains all $w$-values in $G$. Assume further that all elements of the subgroups…

We deal with the following conjecture. If w is a group word and G is a finite group in which any nilpotent subgroup generated by w-values has exponent dividing e, then the exponent of the verbal subgroup w(G) is bounded in terms of e and w…

A group $G$ is said to have restricted centralizers if for each $g \in G$ the centralizer $C_G(g)$ either is finite or has finite index in $G$. Shalev showed that a profinite group with restricted centralizers is virtually abelian. We take…

Let $G$ be a profinite group. We prove that the commutator subgroup $G'$ is finite-by-procyclic if and only if the set of all commutators of $G$ is contained in a union of countably many procyclic subgroups.

Let $w=w(x_1,\ldots,x_r)$ be an outer commutator word. We show that the word $w(u_1,\ldots,u_r)$ is concise whenever $u_1,\ldots,u_r$ are non-commutator words in disjoint sets of variables. This applies in particular to words of the form…

Let $w=w(x_1,...,x_n)$ be a word, i.e. an element of the free group $F = \langle x_1,...,x_n \rangle$. The verbal subgroup $w(G)$ of a group $G$ is the subgroup generated by the set $\{ w(x_1,...,x_n) : x_1,...,x_n \in G \}$ of all…

Let G be a profinite group. The following results are proved. The commutator subgroup G' is finite if and only if G is covered by countably many abelian subgroups. The group G is finite-by-nilpotent if and only if G is covered by countably…

Let $w=w(x_1,\ldots,x_r)$ be a lower central word or a derived word. We show that the word $w(u_1,\ldots,u_r)$ is concise whenever $u_1,\ldots,u_r$ are non-commutator words in disjoint sets of variables, thus proving a generalized version…

We prove that outer commutator words are uniformly concise, i.e. if an outer commutator word w takes m different values in a group G, then the order of the verbal subgroup w(G) is bounded by a function depending only on m and not on w or G.…

We prove that in every finitely generated profinite group, every subgroup of finite index is open; this implies that the topology on such groups is determined by the algebraic structure. This is deduced from the main result about finite…

Let $w$ be a word in $k$ variables. For a finite nilpotent group $G$, a conjecture of Amit states that $N_w(1) \ge |G|^{k-1}$, where $N_w(1)$ is the number of $k$-tuples $(g_1,...,g_k)\in G^{(k)}$ such that $w(g_1,...,g_k)=1$. Currently,…

By a coprime commutator in a profinite group $G$ we mean any element of the form $[x, y]$, where $x,y\in G$ and $(|x|,|y|)=1$. It is well-known that the subgroup generated by the coprime commutators of $G$ is precisely the pronilpotent…

We show that for any finite group $G$ and for any $d$ there exists a word $w\in F_{d}$ such that a $d$-tuple in $G$ satisfies $w$ if and only if it generates a solvable subgroup. In particular, if $G$ itself is not solvable, then it cannot…

The solubilizer of an element $x$ of a profinite group $G$ is the set of the elements $y$ of $G$ such that the subgroup of $G$ generated by $x$ and $y$ is prosoluble. We propose the following conjecture: the solubilizer of $x$ in $G$ has…