Related papers: Computing commutator length is hard

Every finite group $G$ has a normal series each of whose factors either is soluble or is a direct product of nonabelian simple groups. We define the nonsoluble length $\lambda (G)$ as the minimum number of nonsoluble factors in a series of…

In this paper we study the conjugacy problem in polycyclic groups. Our main result is that we construct polycyclic groups $G_n$ whose conjugacy problem is at least as hard as the subset sum problem with $n$ indeterminates. As such, the…

Let $M(A,I)$ be a free partially commutative monoid with involution and $G(A,I)$ be its quotient group, e.g. a right-angled Artin or Coxeter group. Given a system of word equations over $M(A,I)$ with recognizable constraints with input size…

An Engel sink of an element $g$ of a group $G$ is a set ${\mathscr E}(g)$ such that for every $x\in G$ all sufficiently long commutators $[...[[x,g],g],\dots ,g]$ belong to ${\mathscr E}(g)$. (Thus, $g$ is an Engel element precisely when we…

Let G be a word-hyperbolic group with given finite generating set, for which various standard structures and constants have been pre-computed. A (non-practical) algorithm is described that, given as input two lists A and B, each composed of…

A one-relator group is a group $G_r$ that admits a presentation $\langle S \mid r \rangle$ with a single relation $r$. One-relator groups form a rich classically studied class of groups in Geometric Group Theory. If $r \in F(S)'$, the…

Let $G$ and $H$ be groups that act compatibly on each other. We denote by $[G,H]$ the derivative subgroup of $G$ under $H$. We prove that if the set $\{g^{-1}g^h \mid g \in G, h \in H\}$ has $m$ elements, then the derivative $[G,H]$ is…

Let $G$ be a finite solvable group, given through a refined consistent polycyclic presentation, and $\alpha$ an automorphism of $G$, given through its images of the generators of $G$. In this paper, we discuss algorithms for computing the…

We introduce a new method for computing the word length of an element of Thompson's group F with respect to a "consecutive" generating set of the form X_n={x_0,x_1,...,x_n}, which is a subset of the standard infinite generating set for F.…

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.…

Let $G$ be a finite group with the property that if $a,b$ are commutators of coprime orders, then $|ab|=|a||b|$. We show that $G'$ is nilpotent.

We show that the problem of computing the distance of a given permutation from a subgroup $H$ of $S_n$ is in general NP-complete, even under the restriction that $H$ is elementary Abelian of exponent 2. The problem is shown to be…

Given a group G and positive integers k,n, we let B_n=B_n(G) denote the set of all elements x in G such that |x^G|\leq n, and we say that G satisfies the (k,n)-covering condition for commutators if there is a subset S in G such that |S|\leq…

Let w be a group-word. Suppose that the set of all w-values in a profinite group G is contained in a union of countably many cosets of subgroups. We are concerned with the question to what extent the structure of the verbal subgroup w(G)…

Every finite group $G$ has a normal series each of whose factors is either a solvable group or a direct product of nonabelian simple groups. The minimum number of nonsolvable factors attained on all possible such series is called the…

Let $G$ be a connected algebraic group. An unrefinable chain of $G$ is a chain of subgroups $G = G_0 > G_1 > \cdots > G_t = 1$, where each $G_i$ is a maximal connected subgroup of $G_{i-1}$. We introduce the notion of the length…

It is well known that, in general, the set of commutators of a group $G$ may not be a subgroup. Guralnick showed that if $G$ is a finite $p$-group with $p\ge 5$ such that $G'$ is abelian and $3$-generator, then all the elements of the…

Let $H$ be a transfer Krull monoid over a finite ablian group $G$ (for example, rings of integers, holomorphy rings in algebraic function fields, and regular congruence monoids in these domains). Then each nonunit $a \in H$ can be written…

We present a classification of finite $p$-groups $G$ with $\gamma_2(G)$, the commutator subgroup of $G$, of order $p^4$ and exponent $p$ such that not all elements of $\gamma_2(G)$ are commutators.

Let N be a normal subgroup of a finite group G and consider the set cd(G|N) of degrees of irreducible characters of G whose kernels do not contain N. A number of theorems are proved relating the set cd(G|N) to the structure of N. For…