Questions tagged [geometric-group-theory]

Large scale properties of groups; growth functions; Dehn functions; small cancellation properties; hyperbolicity and CAT(0); actions and representations; combinatorial group theory; presentations

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Is the Thompson group F locally indicable?

A group $G$ is called locally indicable if for any finitely generated subgroup $H \subset G$, there is a non-trivial homomorphism from $H$ to the real additive group $(\mathbb{R},+)$. Is the Thompson ...
Mahdi Teymuri Garakani's user avatar
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1 answer
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Is residual finiteness a quasi isometry invariant for f.g. groups?

A "residually finite group" is group for which the intersection of all finite index subgroups is trivial. Suppose $G$ and $G'$ are two quasi-isometric finitely generated groups. Does the residual ...
Mostafa's user avatar
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Are finitely generated amenable groups positively finitely generated?

Let $G$ be a finitely generated amenable group. Is there a positive integer $n$ such that $n$ random elements of $G$ generate it with positive probability? Being more formal, note that $G^n$ is ...
Pablo's user avatar
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12 votes
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Isometries of some simple Cayley graphs

Consider a Cayley graph of a group $G$ with respect to a symmetric finite generating set $S$. There are some obvious candidates to isometries of this graph - for example, translation by elements of $G$...
Miel Sharf's user avatar
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1 answer
515 views

What are smallest finite images of triangle groups?

Given integers $a, b, c$ all at least 2, I would like to identify the smallest group with an element $x$ of order $a$, element $y$ of order $b$ such that the product $yx$ has order $c$. For example, ...
Ken W. Smith's user avatar
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1 answer
377 views

Do finitely generated groups of polynomial growth satisfy a "uniform covering property?"

Let $G$ be a finitely generated discrete group with a finite symmetric generating set $S=S^{-1}\subset G$. For every group element $g$, define $\|g\|_S$ to be the length with respect to $S$, i.e. the ...
Gabor Szabo's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
379 views

What is the least $n\ge1$ for which there is an $n$-dimensional closed flat manifold with perfect fundamental group?

In answer to the question "Is there a flat manifold with trivial first homology?" I proposed choosing a finite perfect group $P$ and a surjection $\phi:F\to P$ where $F$ is a free group of ...
Peter Kropholler's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
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Dualizing module for $\operatorname{Aut}(F_n)$

In The complex of free factors of a free group (pdf at Hatcher's page), Hatcher and Vogtmann defined a simplicial complex $FC_n$ called the ``complex of free factors'' of the free group $F_n$. They ...
qqqqqqw's user avatar
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1 answer
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Quasimorphisms and Bounded Cohomology: Quantitative Version?

Consider maps from a discrete group $\Gamma$ to the additive group $\mathbb{R}$. A function $f:\Gamma \to \mathbb{R}$ is called a quasimorphism if it is locally close to being a group homomorphism. ...
BharatRam's user avatar
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Examples of "Monster" groups

I am planning a talk for a general graduate student audience. The topic is exotic examples of countable discrete groups ("monsters"). Some examples of properties that I'm interested in are: 1.) Non-...
Owen Sizemore's user avatar
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What is the Status of Borel conjecture today?

Let me recall the conjecture: $M$ and $N$ two aspherical closed $n$-manifolds with isomorphic fundamental groups, then $M$ and $N$ are homeomorphic.
Q Q's user avatar
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Artin groups of type $D_n$ as mapping class groups?

According to Allcock (Braid Pictures for Artin groups, https://arxiv.org/abs/math/9907194), the Artin group $A(D_n$) of type $D_n$ may be realized as an index 2 subgroup of the orbifold fundamental ...
Thomas Haettel's user avatar
12 votes
1 answer
293 views

Hyperbolic 3-manifold groups acting on the plane

Can the fundamental group of a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold act freely on the plane by homeomorphisms? Freely and cocompactly? Freely, cocompactly, and preserving orientation?
Steven Frankel's user avatar
12 votes
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457 views

Writing an element of a free product of $C_2$'s as a product of order-$2$ elements

My question is simple: Suppose that $G$ is isomorphic to the free product of finitely many copies of $C_2$. Is it true that any element $g \in G$ can be written as a product $g = s_1 \dotsm s_m$ such ...
Jeff Yelton's user avatar
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Does Thompson's group $V$ have property AP?

Property AP: A discrete group $\Gamma$ has property AP (Approximation Property) if there exists a net $(\phi_i)_{i \in I}$ of finitely supported functions on $\Gamma$ such that $\phi_i \to 1 $ weak$^*$...
tattwamasi amrutam's user avatar
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0 answers
388 views

What is an example of a word hyperbolic group without a finite complete rewriting system?

I believe that it was an open question back when I was a graduate student whether every word hyperbolic group admits a finite complete (=Church-Rosser=Noetherian+confluent) rewriting system for some ...
Benjamin Steinberg's user avatar
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4 answers
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What are the most general classes of simplicial complexes or posets for which the Charney-Davis conjecture is known, and what is the most general setting for which it might expected to be true?

What I would like to know is exactly what the title asks: What are the most general classes of simplicial complexes or posets for which the Charney-Davis conjecture is known, and what is the ...
Matthew Kahle's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
926 views

Finite subgroups of relatively hyperbolic groups

It is well known that in a given $\delta$-hyperbolic group there are only finitely many conjugacy classes of finite subgroups. This is clearly false for relatively hyperbolic groups since we have no ...
seldom seen's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
608 views

Constraints on the homology of amenable groups

Edit (March 24): My first question has been answered nicely, but I am still looking for an answer to the second one. Due to the Kan–Thurston theorem, the homology of an arbitrary group can be anything ...
Jens Reinhold's user avatar
11 votes
3 answers
682 views

Embedding groups into groups with some vanishing homology groups

Which finite subsets $S \subset \mathbb{N}$ have the following property : every countable group $G$ embeds into a finitely generated group $\Gamma$ such that $H_i(\Gamma;\mathbb{Z})=0$ for all $i \in ...
Andy Putman's user avatar
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Quasi-isometric rigidity of Nil

Let $Nil$ be the unique simply connected non-abelian three-dimensional nilpotent Lie group, i.e. the group of upper triangular matrices with all the eigenvalues equal to 1 (this group is also known as ...
Roberto Frigerio's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
930 views

Subtle point in definition of BNS invariant

Let $G$ be a finitely generated group. Let $S(G)$ be the quotient of $\text{Hom}(G,\mathbb{R}) \setminus \{0\}$ by the equivalence relation that identifies two homomorphisms if they differ by scaling ...
Andy Putman's user avatar
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1 answer
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Conjugating a subgroup of a group into a proper subgroup of itself

The following question came up in the class I'm teaching right now. There definitely exist groups $G$ with subgroups $H$ such that there exists some $g \in G$ such that $g H g^{-1}$ is a proper ...
Andy Putman's user avatar
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11 votes
3 answers
344 views

Right-angled Artin groups that split as direct products

For a finite graph $X$, let $A_X$ denote the associated right-angled Artin group. Thus $A_X$ is generated by the vertices of $X$ subject to the relations $[v,w]=1$ whenever vertices $v$ and $w$ are ...
Mike's user avatar
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1 answer
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How to construct a group with specified growth function

Are there any procedures which given a nonnegative nondecreasing function on the integers will construct a finitely generated group with the same growth up to the usual equivalence of growth functions?...
XL _At_Here_There's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
329 views

Growth of Poincaré duality groups

Can one prove that Poincaré duality groups cannot have intermediate growth?
Andrey Gogolev's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
553 views

If $(F_n)_n$ is a Følner sequence satisfying Tempelman's condition, is $(F_n^{-1}F_n)_n$ also Følner?

Let $G$ be a countable group. A Følner sequence is a sequence of finite subsets $(F_n)_n$ such that $$\lim_{n\to\infty} \frac{|KF_n \mathbin\triangle F_n|}{|F_n|} = 0$$ for each fixed finite subset $K ...
Rob's user avatar
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1 answer
888 views

Normal closures of finitely generated subgroups of a free group

Is it true that for every finitelty generated subgroup $H$ of infinite index in a free group $F$ on the two letters $\{x,y\}$, there exists a finite index subgroup $K$ of $H$, such that the normal ...
Pablo's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
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Counterexamples to an analog of Cannon's Conjecture which do not arise from manifolds?

Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely presented hyperbolic group with boundary homeomorphic to $S^{n-1}$. Are there any examples of such $\Gamma$ which are known to not be the fundamental group of any $n$-...
Yankl's user avatar
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1 answer
2k views

Candidates for non-sofic groups

What are the "simplest" examples of countable groups that are not known to be sofic?
Vladimir's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
603 views

Analogues of the curve complex for Out(F)

Let $F$ be a finitely generated free group. Question: Is there an authoritative survey of analogues of the curve complex for $\mathrm{Out}(F)$? If not, as seems likely, would a passing expert be ...
HJRW's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
380 views

Embeddings of finitely generated groups into uniformly convex Banach spaces

de Cornulier, Tessera, and Valette (Geom. Funct. Anal. 17 (2007), 770-792) conjectured that a finitely generated group $G$ with its word metric admits a bilipschitz embedding into a Hilbert space if ...
Mikhail Ostrovskii's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
358 views

Are groups with the Haagerup property hyperlinear?

In his 2008 paper Hyperlinear and Sofic Groups: A Brief Guide, Pestov asked (Open Question 9.5) whether every group with the Haagerup property is hyperlinear (or sofic). Has this question been ...
MaoWao's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
1k views

Topological HNN extensions

First, let me recall what an abstract HNN extension is. Let $G$ be an abstract group, $A, B < G$ be subgroups of $G$ and $\phi : A \to B$ be an isomorphisms. Then there is a group $H$ and an ...
Konstantin Slutsky's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
650 views

Quantum Cellular Automata on Riemannian manifolds and geometric group theory

We try to motivate our question. We have a certain logical/operational structure that has an emergent physical interpretation. We are giving this structure a geometric setting via quasi-isometries. ...
Mauro's user avatar
  • 153
11 votes
1 answer
526 views

Is there a faithful transitive locally finite action of the modular group?

Is there a faithful transitive action of $G = \mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$ on $\mathbb{Z}$ such that orbits under each $g \in G$ are finite?
Pablo's user avatar
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11 votes
1 answer
526 views

Partial word orders on groups

This is a followup question related to this question. Recall that a left-invariant partial order on a finitely generated group $G$ is called a partial word order if for every $a\le b\le c$ we have $|...
user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
313 views

Status of questions in "Group Actions on $\mathbb{R}$-trees"?

Culler and Morgan's "Group Actions on $\mathbb{R}$-trees" lists four questions at the end of the introduction. A few have been famously resolved by work of Rips, Bestvina–Feighn and others. I'm ...
Rylee Lyman's user avatar
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11 votes
0 answers
363 views

Amalgamated product of automatic groups

In Gersten's "Problems on Automatic Groups", Problem 14, he asks the following question: Let $G=A\ast_{C}B$ where $A$ and $B$ are automatic and $C$ is infinite cyclic. Is $G$ automatic? Is this ...
YCC's user avatar
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0 answers
415 views

Other than the Higman group, what other candidates do we have for non-sofic groups?

I know that the Higman group is the most widely studied candidate right now, but what are the others? For example, is (are) Thompson's group(s) sofic? And what about the Burger-Mozes groups? I haven't ...
Nora's user avatar
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0 answers
668 views

Uniquely geodesic groups

Definition : A group is CAT(0) if it acts properly, cocompactly and isometrically on a CAT(0) space. Examples : see this blog. Remark : A CAT(0) space is uniquely geodesic, but the converse is ...
Sebastien Palcoux's user avatar
11 votes
0 answers
677 views

Definition of a uniformly bounded dual of a group

The unitary dual of a group $G$ is the set of equivalence classes of irreducible unitary representations of $G$ with the Fell topology. (This topology is defined using convergence of positive definite ...
user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

When is a Baumslag-Solitar group linear?

The Baumslag-Solitar group $BS(m,n)$ is given by the group presentation $BS(m,n)=(a,b|ba^{m}b^{-1}=a^{n})$. When does it embed into a linear group? Thanks!
Kun Wang's user avatar
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10 votes
2 answers
1k views

Kazhdan's property (T) vs. residual finiteness

I have asked this question already on mathstackexchange but got no answer (see https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/1795795/kazhdans-property-t-vs-residual-finiteness) and it was suggested that I ...
M.U.'s user avatar
  • 701
10 votes
3 answers
1k views

A finite index subgroup of the Mapping Class Group

Let $G$ be the mapping class group of a closed surface $S_{g}$. Bestvina-Bromberg-Fujuwara https://arxiv.org/abs/1006.1939 recently constructed a finite index subgroup $B$ of $G$ such that for every ...
user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
437 views

Sequence of epimorphisms of residually finite groups stabilizes

Let $G_1 \to G_2 \to \cdots$ be a sequence of epimorphisms of finitely generated residually finite groups. Does it eventually stabilize? That is, are all but finitely many epimorphisms actually ...
frafour's user avatar
  • 435
10 votes
2 answers
748 views

Examples of hyperbolic groups with non-hyperbolic subgroups

In a previous question, I asked about hyperbolic groups in which every finitely generated subgroup is hyperbolic. I am now curious about the reverse question: what are some examples of hyperbolic ...
Jean Charles's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
576 views

Is the action of $G$ on $H_1(T^n, \mathbb{Z}) = \mathbb{Z}^n$ faithful?

Let $G$ be a finite group of diffeomorphisms of the torus $T^n$ fixing some point $p$, i.e. $p$ is fixed by every element of $G$. I have two questions. Is the action of $G$ on $H_1(T^n, \mathbb{Z}) = ...
Adam Hagood's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
360 views

Translation lengths in CAT(0) spaces

Let $a,b$ be two loxodromic isometries of a CAT(0) space. Assume that, for every $n \geq 1$, $a^nb$ is also loxodromic. Is it possible for the translation length of $a^nb$ to be bounded independently ...
AGenevois's user avatar
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10 votes
4 answers
881 views

Stallings' Theorem for free products of groups

There is a well known theorem which states that: Theorem(Stallings): For any immersion $f$ from a finite graph $D$ to $G$ there is a finite-sheeted covering space $D '$ of $G$ that extends $f$. ...
user75691's user avatar
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