show/hide this revision's text 2 Clarified my question

EDIT: Let me expand a little bit. As Mark Sapir points out, I'm essentially looking at the lattice of normal subgroups of F(X). I've looked a little at the general theory of subgroup lattices, but I'm really only interested in normal subgroups of F(X) or other finitely presented groups. Also, I find it difficult to work with the normal subgroups of F(X) directly, whereas it's not too hard to work with the quotients by these normal subgroups via presentations. So I'm hoping to find something that's somewhat more specific than just subgroup lattices; ideally, something that works with presentations.

Here are some examples of the type of questions I'm interested in:

  • Is there a simple way to write down a presentation for $F(X) / (\overline{R} \cap \overline{S})$ without changing the generators?
  • Given G and H, what are some conditions on the relations under which $\overline{R} \overline{S} = F(X)$? (This obviously won't be all-inclusive, but some instructive examples would be nice.)
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    show/hide this revision's text 1

    Reference request: lattice operations on the class of finitely presented groups

    In my research, I work with certain finitely presented quotients of Coxeter groups. These are the automorphism groups of abstract polytopes, which are combinatorial generalizations of "usual" polytopes. (Essentially, an abstract polytope is an incidence complex.) Now, in this context, there is a useful combinatorial operation that has a nice effect on the automorphism groups. In fact, it's easy to generalize the operation on groups, so I'm curious whether any work has been done with this.

    Let $G = \langle X \mid R \rangle$ and $H = \langle X \mid S \rangle$ be finitely presented groups. (I'm not sure that the finiteness of the presentation is essential, but let's assume it for now.) In other words, we have that $G = F(X) / \overline{R}$ and $H = F(X) / \overline{S}$, where $F(X)$ is the free group on $X$ and $\overline{R}$ is the normal closure of $R$ in $F(X)$. Then if $K$ naturally covers $G$ and $H$ (that is, if the identity map on $X$ extends to (surjective) homomorphisms from $K$ to $G$ and $K$ to $H$), we have that $K$ covers the group $F(X) / (\overline{R} \cap \overline{S})$. Similarly, if $G$ and $H$ naturally cover $K$, then the group $F(X) / (\overline{R} \overline{S})$ with presentation $\langle X \mid R \cup S \rangle$ naturally covers $K$ as well.

    Therefore, the group $F(X) / (\overline{R} \cap \overline{S})$ is the minimal natural cover of $G$ and $H$, and $F(X) / (\overline{R} \overline{S})$ is the maximal natural quotient of $G$ and $H$. The first group is the fibre product of $G$ and $H$ over the second group.

    These seem like such natural operations that I would guess they have been studied before, but I am having trouble finding anything. Any references would be greatly appreciated.