Related papers: An answer to the Whitehead asphericity question
The Whitehead asphericity problem, regarded as a problem of combinatorial group theory, asks whether any subpresentation of an aspherical group presentation is also aspherical. This is a long standing open problem which has attracted a lot…
We investigate Whitehead's asphericity question from a new perspective, using results and techniques of the homotopy theory of finite topological spaces. We also introduce a method of reduction to investigate asphericity based on the…
We show that subpresentations of aspherical prounipotent presentations over fields of zero characteristics and subpresentations of aspherical pro-$p$-presentations are aspherical, an application to subpresentations of aspherical discrete…
Whitehead aspherical conjecture says that every connected subcomplex of every aspherical 2-complex is aspherical. By an argument on ribbon sphere-links, it is confirmed that the conjecture is true for every contractible finite 2-complex. In…
We show that under suitable hypotheses, the second homotopy group of the coned-off space associated to a $C(9)$ cubical presentation is trivial, and use this to provide classifying spaces for proper actions for the fundamental groups of…
Quasirational (pro-$p$)presentations are studied. The difference between aspherical and quasirational presentations sheds some light on the Whitehead's conjecture. We confirm expectations O.V. Melnikov on existence of a proper class of…
We show that a finitely generated subgroup of a free group, chosen uniformly at random, is strictly Whitehead minimal with overwhelming probability. Whitehead minimality is one of the key elements of the solution of the orbit problem in…
We consider the relative group presentation $\mathcal{P} = \langle G, \mathbf{x} | \mathbf{r} \rangle$ where $\mathbf{x} = \{ x \}$ and $\mathbf{r} = \{ xg_1 xg_2 xg_3 x^{-1} g_4 \}$. We show modulo a small number of exceptional cases…
We study fundamental groups of clique complexes associated to random graphs. We establish thresholds for their cohomological and geometric dimension and torsion. We also show that in certain regime any aspherical subcomplex of a random…
We establish a theory for the existence and regularity of solutions to the cohomological equation over an accessible, partially hyperbolic diffeomorphism. As a by-product of our techniques, we show that for $r>1$, any $C^r$ homogeneous,…
We introduce the concept of quasirational relation modules for discrete and pro-$p$ presentations of discrete and pro-$p$ groups and show that aspherical presentations and their subpresentations are quasirational. In the pro-$p$-case…
The complement of the hyperplanes $\{x_i=x_j\}$, for all $i\neq j$ in $M^n$, for $M$ an aspherical $2$-manifold, is known to be aspherical. Here we consider the situation, when $M$ is a $2$-dimensional orbifold. We prove this complement to…
We prove some triviality results for reduced Whitehead groups and reduced unitary Whitehead groups for division algebras over a henselian discrete valuation field whose residue field has virtual cohomological dimension or separable…
The concept of asphericity for relative group presentations was introduced twenty five years ago. Since then, the subject has advanced and detailed asphericity classifications have been obtained for various families of one-relator relative…
We study random 2-dimensional complexes in the Linial - Meshulam model and prove that for the probability parameter satisfying $$p\ll n^{-46/47}$$ a random 2-complex $Y$ contains several pairwise disjoint tetrahedra such that the 2-complex…
The connections between Whitehead groups and uniformization properties were investigated by the third author in [Sh:98]. In particular it was essentially shown there that there is a non-free Whitehead (respectively, aleph_1-coseparable)…
Let $U$ be an arbitrary word in letters $x_1^{\pm 1}, ..., x_m^{\pm 1}$ and $m \ge 2$. We prove that the group presentation $<x_1, ..., x_m \|\ U x_i U^{-1} = x_{i+1}, i=1,..., m-1>$ is aspherical. The proof is based upon prior partial…
We prove several positive results regarding representation of homotopy classes of spheres and algebraic groups by regular mappings. Most importantly we show that every mapping from a sphere to an orthogonal or a unitary group is homotopic…
We survey the recent results and current issues on the topological rigidity problem for closed aspherical manifolds, i.e., connected closed manifolds whose universal coverings are contractible. A number of open problems and conjectures are…
This is the second of a series of papers which are devoted to a comprehensive theory of maps between orbifolds. In this paper, we develop a basic machinery for studying homotopy classes of such maps. It contains two parts: (1) the…