Related papers: Twisted conjugacy in free groups and Makanin's que…

Let $\phi:G \to G$ be a group endomorphism where $G$ is a finitely generated group of exponential growth, and denote by $R(\phi)$ the number of twisted $\phi$-conjugacy classes. Fel'shtyn and Hill \cite{fel-hill} conjectured that if $\phi$…

We give two results for computing doubly-twisted conjugacy relations in free groups with respect to homomorphisms $\phi$ and $\psi$ such that certain remnant words from $\phi$ are longer than the images of generators under $\psi$. Our first…

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 present a solution to the Conjugacy Problem in the group of outer-automorphisms of $F_3$, a free group of rank 3. We distinguish according to several computable invariants, such as irreducibility, subgroups of polynomial growth, and…

A concrete family of automorphisms alpha_n of the free group F_n is exhibited, for any n > 2, and the following properties are proved: alpha_n is irreducible with irreducible powers, has trivial fixed subgroup, and has 2n-1 attractive as…

Let $G=F\ast_\varphi t$ be an HNN extension of a free group $F$ with two equal associated normal subgroups $H_1 = H_2$ of finite index. We prove that the word problem in $G$ is decidable in polynomial time. This result extends to the case…

A fully irreducible outer automorphism phi of the free group F_n of rank n has an expansion factor which often differs from the expansion factor of the inverse of phi. Nevertheless, we prove that the ratio between the logarithms of the…

An element $\phi$ of the outer automorphism group $\Out(\f)$ of the rank $n$ free group $F_n$ is {\it polynomially growing} if the word lengths of conjugacy classes in $\f$ grow at most polynomially under iteration by $\phi$. It is {\it…

Let $\phi \in \mbox{Out}(F_n)$ be a free group outer automorphism that can be represented by an expanding, irreducible train-track map. The automorphism $\phi$ determines a free-by-cyclic group $\Gamma=F_n \rtimes_\phi \mathbb Z,$ and a…

We give a short proof of a theorem of Handel and Mosher stating that any finitely generated subgroup of $\text{Out}(F_N)$ either contains a fully irreducible automorphism, or virtually fixes the conjugacy class of a proper free factor of…

Let $G$ be a finitely generated polyfree group. If $G$ has nonzero Euler characteristic then we show that $Aut(G)$ has a finite index subgroup in which every automorphism has infinite Reidemeister number. For certain $G$ of length 2, we…

Bestvina, Feighn and Handel proved that every subgroup of the outer automorphism group, $\textrm{Out}(F_n)$, of the free group of rank $n$ is either virtually finitely generated abelian or contains a nonabelian free group. In this note we…

Given a finite abelian group $G$ and elements $x, y \in G$, we prove that there exists $\phi \in \text{Aut}(G)$ such that $\phi(x) = y$ if and only if $G/\langle x \rangle \cong G/\langle y \rangle$. This result leads to our development of…

For every positive integer $n$, we construct, using algebraic groups, an infinite family of irreducible algebraic varieties $X$,whose automorphism group ${\rm Aut}(X)$ contains the automorphism group ${\rm Aut}(F_n)$ of a free group $F_n$…

The palindromic automorphism group is a subgroup of the automorphism group $Aut(F_3).$ We establish a necessary and sufficient condition for a matrix in $GL_n(\mathbb{Z})$ representing a palindromic automorphism of $F_n.$ We prove that the…

Let F_m be a free group of a finite rank m > 1 and X_i, Y_j be elements in F_m. A non-empty word w(x_1,..., x_n) is called a C-test word in n letters for F_m if, whenever w(X_1,..., X_n)=w(Y_1,..., Y_n) not equal to 1, the two n-tuples…

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…

Inspired by Pansiot's work on substitutions, we prove a similar theorem for automorphisms of a free group F of finite rank: if a right-infinite word X represents an attracting fixed point of an automorphism of F, the subword complexity of X…

We give a simpler proof using automata theory of a recent result of Kapovich, Weidmann and Myasnikov according to which so-called benign graphs of groups preserve decidability of the generalized word problem. These include graphs of groups…

We study twisted conjugacy classes of the unit element in different groups. Fel'shtyn and Troitsky showed that the twisted conjugacy class of the unit element of an abelian group is a subgroup for every automorphism. The structure is…