English

Subsets of groups with context-free preimages

Group Theory 2024-05-01 v3 Formal Languages and Automata Theory

Abstract

We study subsets EE of finitely generated groups where the set of all words over a given finite generating set that lie in EE forms a context-free language. We call these sets recognisably context-free. They are invariant of the choice of generating set and a theorem of Muller and Schupp fully classifies when the set {1}\{1\} can be recognisably context-free. We extend Muller and Schupp's result to show that a group GG admits a finite recognisably context-free subset if and only if GG is virtually free. We show that every conjugacy class of a group GG is recognisably context-free if and only if GG is virtually free. We conclude by showing that a coset is recognisably context-free if and only if the Schreier coset graph of the corresponding subgroup is quasi-isometric to a tree.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2312.04191,
  title  = {Subsets of groups with context-free preimages},
  author = {Alex Levine},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2312.04191},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

23 pages, 3 figures. Various corrections and removal of (former) Section 3

R2 v1 2026-06-28T13:43:49.990Z