Related papers: Measures induced by sugroups and tuples in free gr…

In this work, we explore the following question: If two words in a finitely generated free group have identical images as word maps on every finite group, must they be endomorphic to each other? In this regard, we introduce weak profinite…

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.…

Let $G$ be the fundamental group of a graph of finitely generated virtually free groups with virtually cyclic edge groups. We shaw that $G$ is cohomologically good if $G$ is residually finite. If $G$ is LERF, we prove that G splits…

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 study fibers of word maps in finite, profinite, and residually finite groups. Our main result is that, for any word w in the free group on d generators, there exists $\epsilon > 0$ such that if G is a residually finite group with…

We prove that finitely generated free metabelian groups $\Psi_n$ are profinitely rigid in the absolute sense: they are distinguished by their finite quotients among all finitely generated residually finite groups. The proof is based on a…

Every word $w$ in a free group naturally induces a probability measure on every compact group $G$. For example, if $w=\left[x,y\right]$ is the commutator word, a random element sampled by the $w$-measure is given by the commutator…

We establish new characterizations of primitive elements and free factors in free groups, which are based on the distributions they induce on finite groups. For every finite group $G$, a word $w$ in the free group on $k$ generators induces…

Let $F$ be a free group of rank $r$ and fix some $w\in F$. For any compact group $G$ we can define a measure $\mu_{w,G}$ on $G$ by (Haar-)uniformly sampling $g_1,...,g_r\in G$ and evaluating $w(g_1,...,g_r)$. In [arXiv:1802.04862], Magee…

We give new and improved results on the freeness of subgroups of free profinite groups: A subgroup containing the normal closure of a finite word in the elements of a basis is free; Every infinite index subgroup of a finitely generated…

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…

We prove that in every finitely generated profinite group, every subgroup of finite index is open; this implies that the topology on such groups is determined by the algebraic structure. This is deduced from the main result about finite…

Can one detect free products of groups via their profinite completions? We answer positively among virtually free groups. More precisely, we prove that a subgroup of a finitely generated virtually free group $G$ is a free factor if and only…

These notes expand upon our lectures on {\em profinite rigidity} at the international colloquium on randomness, geometry and dynamics, organised by TIFR Mumbai at IISER Pune in January 2024. We are interested in the extent to which groups…

We prove that the word problem of a finitely generated group $G$ is in NP (solvable in polynomial time by a non-deterministic Turing machine) if and only if this group is a subgroup of a finitely presented group $H$ with polynomial…

Work on generalizations of the Cohen-Lenstra and Cohen-Martinet heuristics has drawn attention to probability measures on the space of isomorphism classes of profinite groups. As is common in probability theory, it would be desirable to…

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…

Given a profinite group $G$ and a family $\mathcal{F}$ of finite groups closed under taking subgroups, direct products and quotients, denote by $\mathcal{F}(G)$ the set of elements $g \in G$ such that $\{x \in G\ |\ \langle g,x \rangle \…

Every word $w$ in the free group $F_r$ of rank $r$ induces a probability measure (the $w$-measure) on every compact group $G$, by substitution of Haar-random $G$-elements in the letters. This measure is determined by its Fourier…

We study invariant probability measures on the homogeneous space $\mathrm{SL}_n(\mathbb R)/\mathrm{SL}_n(\mathbb Z)$ for the action of subgroups of $\mathrm{SL}_n(\mathbb R)$ of the form $SF$ where $F$ is generated by one parameter…