Related papers: Primitive Sets of Words

A set of natural numbers $A$ is called primitive if no element of $A$ divides any other. Let $\Omega(n)$ be the number of prime divisors of $n$ counted with multiplicity. Let $f_z(A) = \sum_{a \in A}\frac{z^{\Omega(a)}}{a (\log a)^z}$,…

Let X be a subset of an abelian group and a_1,...,a_h,a'_1,...,a'_h a sequence of 2h elements of X such that a_1 + ... + a_h = a'_1 + ... + a'_h. The set X is a Sidon set of order h if, after renumbering, a_i = a'_i for i = 1,..., h. For k…

We prove a freeness theorem for low-rank subgroups of one-relator groups. Let $F$ be a free group, and let $w\in F$ be a non-primitive element. The primitivity rank of $w$, $\pi(w)$, is the smallest rank of a subgroup of $F$ containing $w$…

A group-word $w$ is concise in a class of groups $\mathcal X$ if and only if the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is finite whenever $w$ takes only finitely many values in a group $G\in \mathcal X$. It is a long-standing open problem whether every…

Given a group-word $w$ and a group $G$, the set of $w$-values in $G$ is denoted by $G_w$ and the verbal subgroup $w(G)$ is the one generated by $G_w$. The word $w$ is concise if $w(G)$ is finite for all groups $G$ in which $G_w$ is finite.…

We consider words over a binary alphabet. A word $w$ is overlap-free if it does not have factors (blocks of consecutive letters) of the form $uvuvu$ for nonempty $u$. Let $M(w)$ denote the number of positions that are middle positions of…

Various descending chains of subgroups of a finite permutation group can be used to define a sequence of `basic' permutation groups that are analogues of composition factors for abstract finite groups. Primitive groups have been the…

Let $\Lambda^{\ast}$ be the free monoid of (finite) words over a not necessarily finite alphabet $\Lambda$, which is equipped with some (partial) order. This ordering lifts to $\Lambda^{\ast}$, where it extends the divisibility ordering of…

The Schwartz-Zippel Lemma states that if a low-degree multivariate polynomial with coefficients in a field is not zero everywhere in the field, then it has few roots on every finite subcube of the field. This fundamental fact about…

We show that any finite monoid or semigroup presentation satisfying the small overlap condition C(4) has word problem which is a deterministic rational relation. It follows that the set of lexicographically minimal words forms a regular…

Call a reduced word $w$ multiplicity-bounding if and only if a finite group on which the word map of $w$ has a fiber of positive proportion $\rho$ can only contain each nonabelian finite simple group $S$ as a composition factor with…

We study the language-theoretic properties of the word problem, in the sense of Duncan & Gilman, of weakly compressible monoids, as defined by Adian & Oganesian. We show that if $\mathcal{C}$ is a reversal-closed super-$\operatorname{AFL}$,…

This paper is a contribution to the study of hereditary classes of finite graphs. We classify these classes according to the number of prime structures they contain. We consider such classes that are \emph{minimal prime}: classes that…

We consider some questions about formal languages that arise when inverses of letters, words and languages are defined. The reduced representation of a language over the free monoid is its unique equivalent representation in the free group.…

A finitely generated group or monoid is said to be context-free if it has context-free word problem. In this note, we give an example of a context-free monoid, none of whose maximal subgroups are finitely generated. This answers a question…

It is well known that every finite simple group can be generated by two elements and this leads to a wide range of problems that have been the focus of intensive research in recent years. In this survey article we discuss some of the…

A famous conjecture of Artin states that there are infinitely many prime numbers for which a fixed integer $g$ is a primitive root, provided $g \neq -1$ and $g$ is not a perfect square. Thanks to work of Hooley, we know that this conjecture…

Let $w$ be a multilinear commutator word. In the present paper we describe recent results that show that if $G$ is a profinite group in which all $w$-values are contained in a union of finitely (or in some cases countably) many subgroups…

Motivated by approaches to the word problem for one-relation monoids arising from work of Adian and Oganesian (1987), Guba (1997), and Ivanov, Margolis and Meakin (2001), we study the submonoid and rational subset membership problems in…

New sets (typically found by computer search) with Sidon constant equal to the square root of their cardinalities are given. For each integer $N$ there are only a finite number of groups of prime order containing $N$-element extreme sets.…