Questions tagged [gr.group-theory]
Questions about the branch of algebra that deals with groups.
2,154 questions with no upvoted or accepted answers
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Is the class of commutative generalized Euclidean rings stable under quotient and localization?
Let $R$ be an associative ring with identity and let $E_n(R)$ be the subgroup of $GL_n(R)$ generated by matrices obtained from the identity matrix by replacing an off-diagonal entry by some $r∈R$. Let ...
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When does a CAT(0) group contain a rank one isometry
Let $G$ be a CAT(0) group which acts on the CAT(0) space $X$ properly and cocompactly via isometry. Let $g \in G$ be a hyperbolic isometry of $X$. Then $g$ is called $\textbf{rank one}$ if no axis of $...
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What is the kernel of the map $Out(\widehat{F_2})\rightarrow GL_2(\widehat{\mathbb{Z}})$?
Let $F_2$ be the free group on two generators, and $\widehat{F_2}$ its profinite completion. Let $Out(\widehat{F_2})$ be the outer automorphism group of $\widehat{F_2}$, ie, $Out(\widehat{F_2}) = Aut(\...
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Tarski Monster group with prime 5
Does the Tarski Monster group with prime 5 exist? I know that for 2 and 3, the group does not exist, but what about 5?
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Group with unsolvable conjugacy problem but solvable conjugacy length?
Could there exist a finitely presented group with unsolvable conjugacy problem, in which it is decidable whether a word over the group generators is a shortest representative of an element in its ...
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Good bounds for the number of $n$-dimensional crystallographic groups ?
Let $s(n)$ denote the number of distinct crystallographic groups in $Isom(\mathbb{R}^n)$.
Apparently the best known upper bound so far is
$$
s(n)\le e^{e^{4n^2}},
$$
given by Peter Buser in $1985$. On ...
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'Almost-isomorphic' groups
What can be said about pairs of non-isomorphic groups which are epimorphic images of one another and which also embed into one another?
Can such pairs of groups be 'classified' in some sufficiently ...
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'Infinitesimal' elements of a topological group
Let $G$ be a topological group, and let $M$ be the intersection of all conjugacy-invariant neighbourhoods of the identity in $G$ (in other words, the set of elements that can be taken arbitarily close ...
- 4,728
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444
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Residual finite dimensionality of surface groups
Alex Lubotzky and Yehuda Shalom have shown in Finite representations in the unitary dual and Ramanujan groups., (Discrete geometric analysis, 173–189, Contemp. Math., 347, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence,...
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Reflection groups in O(n+1,n) arising `in nature'?
For a while a friend and I have been thinking about a family of integral symmetric bilinear forms of signature $(n+1,n)$. Such lattices in our case arise 'in nature' (in a certain problem about vector ...
- 1,859
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Logarithm of a $p$-group in $\mathrm{GL}_n(p)$
$\def\GL{\operatorname{GL}}\def\ZZ{\mathbb{Z}}\def\FF{\mathbb{F}}\def\Id{\mathrm{Id}}\def\fu{\mathfrak{u}}$Let $p$ be prime, let $n<p$, let $U_n(\FF_p)$ be the group of $n \times n$ upper ...
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Groups having exactly two non real-valued irreducible characters
This is an enlarged version of my question on MSE. It was suggested I ask here instead.
Suppose the finite group $G$ has exactly two conjugacy classes that are not self-inverse (a conjugacy class is ...
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Word maps from $\mathrm{Cl}^{n+1}$ to $G^n$: quasi-injectivity?
Let $G = \mathrm{SL}_n$ (say). Then, for $g$ regular semisimple, the conjugacy class $\mathrm{Cl}(g)$ has dimension $= n^2-n$ as a variety, and so $\mathrm{Cl}(g)^{n+1}$ and $G^n$ have the same ...
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What is this quotient of the free product?
Previously asked at MSE. The construction here can generalize to arbitrary algebras (in the sense of universal algebra) in the same signature with the only needed tweak being the replacement of "...
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Is this set, defined in terms of an irreducible representation, closed under inverses?
$\DeclareMathOperator\GL{GL}$Let $ H $ be an irreducible finite subgroup of $ \GL(n,\mathbb{C}) $. Define $ N^r(H) $ inductively by
$$
N^{r+1}(H)=\{ g \in \GL(n,\mathbb{C}): g H g^{-1} \subset N^r(H) \...
- 4,081
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Quantizing the size of a pro-$p$ group
Let $p$ be a prime number and $G$ be a pro-$p$ group (not necessarily powerful). Let $\Omega$ denote the completed group algebra $\mathbb{F}_p[[G]]:=\varprojlim_N \mathbb{F}_p[G/N]$, where $N$ ranges ...
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In search of a quick proof that groups acting freely on $\mathbb R$-trees are linear
Many years ago I had the idea to use non-standard analysis to prove that a group acting freely on an $\mathbb R$-tree must be linear. The heuristic went like this:
A non-standard model $G^*$
of the ...
- 1,638
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Is the Lawrence–Krammer representation faithful, reduced modulo p?
It is well-known that the braid group $B_n$ is linear for every $n$ by the Lawrence–Krammer (or LKB) representation. It embeds $B_n$ faithfully into $\mathrm{GL}\left(\frac{n(n-1)}{2},\mathbb{Z}[q^{\...
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Group presentations where discarding generators always yields a subgroup
Consider a group presentation $ \left< G= \left\lbrace \text{generators}\right\rbrace \, \middle|\, R = \left\lbrace \text{relators}\right\rbrace \right>$ (no finiteness assumptions). Given $S\...
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Coarse quotient maps
Interesting connections and analogies have been observed between
non-linear geometry of Banach spaces and coarse geometry.
In the former subject, people have investigated the notion of
uniform (or ...
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Uniform amenability at infinity
Let's recall that a group $G$ is amenable if for any finite subset $E\subset G$ and any $\epsilon>0$
there is a finite subset $F\subset G$ such that
$$\max_{s\in E} |s F \mathbin{\triangle} F| \le \...
- 10.1k
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What are the stable cohomology classes of the "orthogonal groups" of finite abelian groups?
Let $A$ be a finite abelian group, and equip it with a nondegenerate symmetric bilinear form $\langle,\rangle : A \times A \to \mathrm{U}(1)$. Then you can reasonably talk about the "orthogonal ...
- 54.6k
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Is there a finite group with nontrivial $H^2$ but vanishing $H^4$, $H^5$, and $H^6$?
Is there a finite group $G$ such that the group cohomology $\mathrm{H}^2_{\mathrm{gp}}(G; \mathbb{Z}/2)$ is nontrivial but $\mathrm{H}^4_{\mathrm{gp}}(G; \mathbb{Z}/2)$, $\mathrm{H}^5_{\mathrm{gp}}(G;...
- 54.6k
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Monodromy groups that are profinitely dense in Sp(2g,Z)
$\DeclareMathOperator\Sp{Sp}$Assume $g\geq 2$. It is known that there exist finitely generated subgroups of $\Sp(2g,\mathbb{Z})$ of infinite index that surject onto all finite quotients of $\Sp(2g,\...
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Bi-exact groups and amenable actions on their compactifications
As defined in C$^∗$-algebras and finite-dimensional approximations by Brown and Ozawa, a discrete countable group $\Gamma$ is bi-exact if its action on $C(\Delta\Gamma):=C(\bar\Gamma)/c_0(\Gamma)$ is ...
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Amenable automatic groups
Are there any known examples of finitely generated groups that are both amenable and automatic, besides the easy example of virtually abelian groups? Or are there any known restrictions that arise if ...
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The conjugacy problem for two-relator groups
Is the conjugacy problem for two-relator groups known to be undecidable?
The word problem for two-relator groups is a famous open problem (appearing e.g. as Question 9.29 in the Kourovka notebook), ...
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McDuff groups and McDuff factors
I asked a question over on Math.Stackexchange with the same title, but I didn't get any activity over there, which made me think that the question would be better suited for MathOverflow. I suppose ...
- 281
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When does a semisimple $\mathbb{C}$-algebra come from a group?
Let $\mathcal{A}$ be a semisimple $\mathbb{C}$-algebra. By the Artin-Wedderburn theorem, it is isomorphic to a direct product of matrix algebras:
$$ \mathcal{A} = \prod_{i=1}^m M_{n_i}(\mathbb{C})$$
...
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Computing the number of elementary abelian p-subgroups of rank 2 in $GL_{n}(\mathbb{F}_{p})$
Let $p$ be a prime number, and let $\mathbb{F}_{p}$ be a finite
field of order $p$. Let $GL_{n}(\mathbb{F}_{p})$ denote the general linear
group and $U_{n}$ denote the unitriangular group of $n\times ...
- 463
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Small flag triangulations
In geometric group theory and low-dimensional topology, asking for a triangulation of a specific space to be flag can often be somewhat more cumbersome than just turning a CW-complex into a simplicial ...
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Membership problem in general linear group
This is surely a very well known problem, but I could not find an answer on MO or on Google, so here I am.
Given some finitely generated free subgroup $H$ of $\operatorname{GL}_n(\mathbb{Z}[t,t^{-1}])...
- 469
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A generalization of Feit–Thompson conjecture, for square-free integers
I asked the following question with my account that I have for these sites Mathematics Stack Exchange and MathOverflow. The bounty that I offered in MSE expired without answers. The post that I refer ...
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A $\mathsf{ZF}$ example of a nonreflexive group which is isomorphic to its double dual?
Given a group $G$ denote by $G^\ast=\mathrm{Hom}(G,\Bbb Z)$ its dual and by $j\colon G\to G^{\ast\ast}$ the canonical homomorphism $g\mapsto (f\mapsto f(g))$. A group is reflexive iff $j$ is an ...
- 3,011
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Finite groups with unbounded commutator width and no nontrivial central chief factor
The commutator width of a group is the smallest $n$ such that every product of commutators is a product of $n$ commutators.
My initial question was:
Do there exist finite perfect groups with ...
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Subgroups of torsion-free hyperbolic groups versus subgroups of hyperbolic groups
Let $\mathcal{S}$ be the class of finitely presented torsion-free groups which occur as the subgroup of some hyperbolic group (so for every $G\in \mathcal{S}$ there exists a hyperbolic group $H$ such ...
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Can the set of endomorphisms of $(\mathbb R,+)$ have cardinality strictly between $\frak c$ and $\frak{c^c}$?
Let $\frak c$ be the cardinality of the reals. I know that in ZF the set of endomorphisms of $(\mathbb R,+)$ can have at least two different cardinalites:
If we allow the axiom of choice, you can ...
user35370
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Are the braid groups good in the sense of Toën?
In this question it is asked whether the mapping class groups are 'good' in relation to pro-finite completion. Helpfully, one of the answers gives a link to a proof that the braid groups are good ...
- 1,635
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What are the character tables of the finite unitary groups?
I need to know the (complex) character table of the finite unitary group $U_n(q)$. Lusztig and Srinivasan (1977) provide an abstract description, but parsing it requires a stronger background in ...
- 7,633
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Relationship between the p-radical subgroups and the parabolics in a BN-pair generality
A theorem of Quillen says that if $G$ is a finite Chevalley group over characteristic $p$, then the poset $\mathcal{A}_p(G)$ of nontrivial elementary abelian subgroups of $G$ is homotopy equivalent (I ...
- 1,726
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341
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Torsion in a tensor product over a group ring
Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely generated dense subgroup of a pro-$p$ group $G$. Let $\mathbb Z_p$ be the ring of $p$-adic numbers. Denote by $\mathbb Z_p[[G]]$ the completed group algebra.
Is it true ...
- 1,418
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Lower central series of nearly metabelian groups
Let's say that $G \in \mathcal M_k$ if every $k$-generated subgroup of $G$ is metabelian. Obviously, $\mathcal M_{\geq 4} = \mathcal M_4 = \mathcal M$ is the variety of metabelian groups, but it's ...
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intriguing Polytope
Define $E_{i,j} \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n}$ to be the canonical basis (that is all elements set to zero except the entry $i,j$ )
let the bloc matrix $M \in \mathbb{R}^{n^2 \times n^2}$ defined by :
...
- 81
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Are there two non-isomorphic finitely presented groups which are retracts of each other?
According to answers to this Math Overflow question, there is an infinite rank abelian group $A$ such that $A\cong A^3$ but $A\not\cong A^2.$ Clearly $A$ is an retract of $A^2$ while $A^2$ is an ...
- 1,182
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What classifies involutive automorphisms on finite groups? What classifies involutions on finite based rings?
Groups
Let $G$ be a finite group. An involutive automorphism on $G$ is an automorphism $i\colon G \to G$ such that $i^2 = 1_G$.
Question 1. What classifies involutive automorphisms on a given (non-...
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Superharmonic functions and amenability
Let $G$ be a group generated by a finite set $S$. Let $P$ be a Markov operator defined by the uniform measure on $S$. A function is superharmonic if $Pf\leq f$.
Assume that there is a set of non-...
- 4,705
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106
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Number of occurrences of certain generators in expressions in Coxeter groups
Let $W$ be a Coxeter group (finite or infinite) with (finite) set $S$ of Coxeter generators, and let $I \subseteq S$ be some subset. If $w\in W$ then I call $m_I(w)$ the minimum total number of ...
- 32.5k
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200
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Varieties of groups with certain properties
Is there an example of a periodic variety $\mathbf{V}$ of groups that satisfies all of the following properties?
$\mathbf{V}$ is finitely based
$\mathbf{V}$ contains finitely many subvarieties
$\...
- 563
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88
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Is recognizing if a Latin square is isotopic to its transpose more efficient than computing its symmetry group?
Ihrig and Ihrig (2007) described a mathematical method for determining if a Latin square is isotopic to its transpose (where isotopic Latin squares vary by permuting the rows, columns and symbols). ...
- 1,327
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184
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Zappa-Szép products of the group of integers with itself
Since my previous question didn't get much attention and I couldn't make any relevant progress on it, I thought it would be a good idea to "simplify" it by replacing monoids by groups. That is:
...
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