Related papers: On groups with large verbal quotients

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…

The `upper rank' of a group is the supremum of the (Pr\"{u}fer) ranks of its finite quotients, and for a prime $p$, the `upper $p$-rank' is the supremum of the sectional $p$-ranks of those quotients. The former is finite if and only if the…

Let $A,B$ be nonempty subsets of a an abelian group $G$. Let $N_i(A,B)$ denote the set of elements of $G$ having $i$ distinct decompositions as a product of an element of $A$ and an element of $B$. We prove that $$ \sum _{1\le i \le t} |N_i…

We study the groups $G$ with the curious property that there exists an element $k\in G$ and a function $f\colon G\to G$ such that $f(xk)=xf(x)$ holds for all $x\in G$. This property arose from the study of near-rings and input-output…

The solvable Farb growth of a group quantifies how well-approximated the group is by its finite solvable quotients. In this note we present a new characterization of polycyclic groups which are virtually nilpotent. That is, we show that a…

A conjecture of Rosenberger says that a group of the form $\langle x,y|x^p=y^q=W(x,y)^r=1\rangle$ (with $r>1$) is either virtually solvable or contains a non-abelian free subgroup. This note is an account of an attack on the conjecture in…

Let G be a finite group. An element x in G is a real element if x is conjugate to its inverse in G. For x in G, the conjugacy class x^G is said to be a real conjugacy class if every element of x^G is real. We show that if 4 divides no real…

We study equations in groups G with unique m-th roots for each positive integer m. A word equation in two letters is an expression of the form w(X,A) = B, where w is a finite word in the alphabet {X,A}. We think of A,B in G as fixed…

Let $G$ be a finite group and $\sigma_1(G)=\frac{1}{|G|}\sum_{H\leq G}\,|H|$. Under some restrictions on the number of conjugacy classes of (non-normal) maximal subgroups of $G$, we prove that if $\sigma_1(G)<\frac{117}{20}\,$, then $G$ is…

Let $p$ be a prime number and suppose that every maximal subgroup of a finite group is either $p$-nilpotent or has prime index. Such group need not be $p$-solvable, and we study its structure by proving that only one nonabelian simple group…

Consider a group word w in n letters. For a compact group G, w induces a map G^n \rightarrow G$ and thus a pushforward measure {\mu}_w on G from the Haar measure on G^n. We associate to each word w a 2-dimensional cell complex X(w) and…

The \emph{word problem} of a group $G = \langle \Sigma \rangle$ can be defined as the set of formal words in $\Sigma^*$ that represent the identity in $G$. When viewed as formal languages, this gives a strong connection between classes of…

Let $G$ be a finite group, and $c$ an element of $\mathbb{Z}\cup \{\infty\}$. A subgroup $H$ of $G$ is said to be {\it $c$-nilpotent} if it is nilpotent, and has nilpotency class at most $c$. A subset $X$ of $G$ is said to be {\it…

We show that every finite group $G$ of size at least $3$ has a nilpotent subgroup of class at most $2$ and size at least $|G|^{1/32\log\log|G|}$. This answers a question of Pyber, and is essentially best possible.

We study groups $G$ where the $\varphi$-conjugacy class $[e]_{\varphi}=\{g^{-1}\varphi(g)~|~g\in G\}$ of the unit element is a subgroup of $G$ for every automorphism $\varphi$ of $G$. If $G$ has $n$ generators, then we prove that the $k$-th…

A subgroup $H$ of a finite group $G$ is said to be an NC-subgroup of $G$, if $ H^G N_G (H) =G$, where $H^G$ denotes the normal closure of $H$ in $G$. A finite group $G$ is called a PNC-group, if any subgroup of $G$ is an NC-subgroup of $G$,…

We extend a classical theorem of P. Hall that claims that if the index of every maximal subgroup of a finite group $G$ is a prime or the square of a prime, then $G$ is solvable. Precisely, we prove that if one allows, in addition, the…

M.Newman has asked if it is the case that whenever H and K are isomorphic subgroups of a finite solvable group G with H maximal, then K is also maximal. This question was considered in a paper of I.M. Isaacs and the second author, where…

The group $\mathfrak{X}(G)$ is obtained from $G\ast G$ by forcing each element $g$ in the first free factor to commute with the copy of $g$ in the second free factor. We make significant additions to the list of properties that the functor…

For a finitely generated lawless group $\Gamma$ and $n \in \mathbb{N}$, let $\mathcal{A}_{\Gamma} (n)$ be the minimal positive integer $M_n$ such that for all nontrivial reduced words $w$ of length at most $n$ in the free group of fixed…