Related papers: Profinite Completion of Free Pro-$\mathcal{C}$ Gro…
We establish that, under certain closure assumptions on a pseudovariety of semigroups, the corresponding relatively free profinite semigroups freely generated by a non-singleton finite set act faithfully on their minimum ideals. As…
A group is $\textit{finitely axiomatizable}$ (FA) in a class $\mathcal{C}$ if it can be determined up to isomorphism within $\mathcal{C}$ by a sentence in the first-order language of group theory. We show that profinite groups of various…
A survey of recent results about profinite groups, and results about infinite and finite groups where the theory of profinite groups plays a leading role.
We prove that the profinite completion of the fundamental group of a compact 3-manifold $M$ satisfies a Tits alternative: if a closed subgroup $H$ does not contain a free pro-$p$ subgroup for any $p$, then $H$ is virtually soluble, and…
Recently there has been a lot of research and progress in profinite groups. We survey some of the new results and discuss open problems. A central theme is decompositions of finite groups into bounded products of subsets of various kinds…
We determine the absolute differential Galois group of the field $\mathbb{C}(x)$ of rational functions: It is the free proalgebraic group on a set of cardinality $|\mathbb{C}|$. This solves a longstanding open problem posed by B.H. Matzat.…
A profinite group is called small if it has only finitely many open subgroups of index n for each positive integer n. We show that every Frattini cover of a small profinite group is small. A profinite group is called strongly complete if…
We investigate accessible subgroups of a profinite group $G$, i.e. subgroups $H$ appearing as vertex groups in a graph of profinite groups decomposition of $G$ with finite edge groups. We prove that any accessible subgroup $H \leq G$ arises…
We present two uncountable families of finitely generated residually finite groups all having the same profinite completion. One consists of soluble groups, the other of branch groups.
We prove that every small profinite group can be decomposed into a direct product of indecomposable profinite groups, and that such a decomposition is unique up to order and isomorphisms of the components. We also investigate the…
Given a discrete (resp. profinite) group $G$, we define $NCC(G)$ to be the smallest number of cyclic (resp. procyclic) subgroups of $G$ whose conjugates cover $G$. In this paper we determine all residually finite discrete groups with finite…
Let k be a global field and let k_v be the completion of k with respect to v, a non-archimedean place of k. Let \mathbf{G} be a connected, simply-connected algebraic group over k, which is absolutely almost simple of k_v-rank 1. Let…
Let $S$ be either a free group or the fundamental group of a closed hyperbolic surface. We show that if $G$ is a finitely generated residually-$p$ group with the same pro-$p$ completion as $S$, then two-generated subgroups of $G$ are free.…
In this article we study the extent to which an $n$-dimensional compact flat manifold with the cyclic holonomy group of square-free order may be distinguished by the finite quotients of its fundamental group. In particular, we display a…
The isomorphism problem for infinite finitely presented groups is probably the hardest among standard algorithmic problems in group theory. Classes of groups where it has been completely solved are nilpotent groups, hyperbolic groups, and…
We survey recent work ranging around the question in how far a group, or a property of a group, is determined by the set of finite quotient groups. Our focus lies on $S$-arithmetic groups, branch groups, and their relatives.
Let $\mathfrak C$ be a class of finite groups which is closed for subgroups, quotients and direct products. Given a profinite group $G$ and an element $x\in G$, we denote by $P_{\mathfrak{C}}(x,G)$ the probability that $x$ and a randomly…
We prove that the class of closed subgroups of free profinite monoids is precisely the class of projective profinite groups. In particular, the profinite groups associated to minimal symbolic dynamical systems by Almeida are projective. Our…
In "Subgroups of free profinite groups and large subfields of Q" (Israel J. Math. 39 (1981), no. 1-2, pages 25-45; MR 617288) A. Lubotzky and L. van den Dries raise the question whether a finitely generated, residually finite group is…
Profinite congruences on profinite algebras determining profinite quotients are difficult to describe. In particular, no constructive description is known of the least profinite congruence containing a given binary relation on the algebra.…