Related papers: Orbit-blocking words in free groups
Let F_2 denote the free group of rank 2. Our main technical result of independent interest is: for any element u of F_2, there is g in F_2 such that no cyclically reduced image of u under an automorphism of F_2 contains g as a subword. We…
The Whitehead minimization problem consists in finding a minimum size element in the automorphic orbit of a word, a cyclic word or a finitely generated subgroup in a finite rank free group. We give the first fully polynomial algorithm to…
Let $F_n$ be the free group of a finite rank $n$. We study orbits $Orb_{\phi}(u)$, where $u$ is an element of the group $F_n$, under the action of an automorphism $\phi$. If an orbit like that is finite, we determine precisely what its…
In this survey, we describe recent progress on asymptotic properties of various automorphic orbits in free groups. In particular, we address the problem of counting potentially positive elements of a given length. We also discuss complexity…
We show that the following problems are decidable in a rank 2 free group F_2: does a given finitely generated subgroup H contain primitive elements? and does H meet the orbit of a given word u under the action of G, the group of…
Elements of the free group define interesting maps, known as word maps, on groups. It was previously observed by Lubotzky that every subset of a finite simple group that is closed under endomorphisms occurs as the image of some word map. We…
The worst-case complexity of group-theoretic algorithms has been studied for a long time. Generic-case complexity, or complexity on random inputs, was introduced and studied relatively recently. In this paper, we address the average-case…
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 prove that, for a finitely generated residually finite group, having solvable word problem is not a sufficient condition to be a subgroup of a finitely presented residually finite group. The obstruction is given by a residually finite…
The study of verbal subgroups within a group is well-known for being an effective tool to obtain structural information about a group. Therefore, conditions that allow the classification of words in a free group are of paramount importance.…
We develop a refinement of Whitehead's algorithm for primitive words in a free group. We generalize to subgroups, establishing a strengthened version of Whitehead's algorithm for free factors. We make use of these refinements in proving new…
A longstanding question of Gromov asks whether every one-ended word-hyperbolic group contains a subgroup isomorphic to the fundamental group of a closed hyperbolic surface. An infinite family of word-hyperbolic groups can be obtained by…
We generalize the combinatorial approaches of Rapaport and Higgins--Lyndon to the Whitehead algorithm. We show that for every automorphism $\varphi$ of a free group $F$ and every word $u\in F$ there exists a finite multiset of words…
We study endomorphisms of a free group of finite rank by means of their action on specific sets of elements. In particular, we prove that every endomorphism of the free group of rank 2 which preserves an automorphic orbit (i.e., acts ``like…
In this note we give a new proof of the fact that an elementary subgroup (in the sense of first-order theory) of a non abelian free group $\mathbb{F}$ must be a free factor. The proof is based on definability of orbits of elements of under…
A word $w$ in a free group is {\em achiral} if for every group $G,$ $G_w=G_{w^{-1}},$ where $G_w$ is the image of the word map $w$ on $G.$ We will give few classes of examples of achiral words. Cocke and Ho asked whether Engel words are…
A word in a group is called a test element if any endomorphism fixing it is necessarily an automorphism. In this note, we give a sufficient condition in geometry to construct test elements for monomorphisms of a free group, by using the…
Every word in a free group $F$ induces a probability measure on every finite group in a natural manner. It is an open problem whether two words that induce the same measure on every finite group, necessarily belong to the same orbit of…
We show that it is impossible to algorithmically decide if the l^2-cohomology of the universal cover of a finite CW complex is trivial, even if we only consider complexes whose fundamental group is equal to the elementary amenable group…
We prove a rigidity theorem for the geometry of the unit ball in random subspaces of the scl norm in B_1^H of a free group. In a free group F of rank k, a random word w of length n (conditioned to lie in [F,F]) has scl(w)=log(2k-1)n/6log(n)…