arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Jennifer Taback.
We extend work of the first author and Khoussainov to show that being Cayley automatic is closed under taking the restricted wreath product with a virtually infinite cyclic group. This adds to the list of known examples of Cayley automatic groups.
In contrast to being automatic, being Cayley automatic \emph{a priori} has no geometric consequences. Specifically, Cayley graphs of automatic groups enjoy a fellow traveler property. Here we study a distance function introduced by the first author and Trakuldit which aims to measure how far a Cayley automatic group is from being automatic, in terms of how badly the Cayley graph fails the fellow traveler property. The first author and Trakuldit showed that if it fails by at most a constant amount, then the group is in fact automatic. In this article we show that for a large class of non-automatic Cayley automatic groups this function is bounded below by a linear function in a precise sense defined herein. In fact, for all Cayley automatic groups which have super-quadratic Dehn function, or which are not finitely presented, we can construct a non-decreasing function which (1) depends only on the group and (2) bounds from below the distance function for any Cayley automatic structure on the group.
For an element in $BS(1,n) = \langle t,a | tat^{-1} = a^n \rangle$ written in the normal form $t^{-u}a^vt^w$ with $u,w \geq 0$ and $v \in \mathbb{Z}$, we exhibit a geodesic word representing the element and give a formula for its word length with respect to the generating set $\{t,a\}$. Using this word length formula, we prove that there are sets of elements of positive density of positive, negative and zero conjugation curvature, as defined by Bar Natan, Duchin and Kropholler.
We exhibit a regular language of geodesics for a large set of elements of $BS(1,n)$ and show that the growth rate of this language is the growth rate of the group. This provides a straightforward calculation of the growth rate of $BS(1,n)$, which was initially computed by Collins, Edjvet and Gill in [5]. Our methods are based on those we develop in [8] to show that $BS(1,n)$ has a positive density of elements of positive, negative and zero conjugation curvature, as introduced by Bar-Natan, Duchin and Kropholler in [1].
We show that the higher rank lamplighter groups, or Diestel-Leader groups $\Gamma_d(q)$ for $d \geq 3$, are graph automatic. This introduces a new family of graph automatic groups which are not automatic.
It is not known whether Thompson's group F is automatic. With the recent extensions of the notion of an automatic group to graph automatic by Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov and then to C-graph automatic by the authors, a compelling question is whether F is graph automatic or C-graph automatic for an appropriate language class C. The extended definitions allow the use of a symbol alphabet for the normal form language, replacing the dependence on generating set. In this paper we construct a 1-counter graph automatic structure for F based on the standard infinite normal form for group elements.
The definition of graph automatic groups by Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov and its extension to C-graph automatic by Murray Elder and the first author raise the question of whether Thompson's group F is graph automatic. We define a language of normal forms based on the combinatorial "caret types" which arise when elements of F are considered as pairs of finite rooted binary trees, which we show to be accepted by a finite state machine with 2 counters, and forms the basis of a 3-counter graph automatic structure for the group.
Let $\Gamma_d(q)$ denote the group whose Cayley graph with respect to a particular generating set is the Diestel-Leader graph $DL_d(q)$, as described by Bartholdi, Neuhauser and Woess. We compute both $Aut(\Gamma_d(q))$ and $Out(\Gamma_d(q))$ for $d \geq 2$, and apply our results to count twisted conjugacy classes in these groups when $d \geq 3$. Specifically, we show that when $d \geq 3$, the groups $\Gamma_d(q)$ have property $R_{\infty}$, that is, every automorphism has an infinite number of twisted conjugacy classes. In contrast, when $d=2$ the lamplighter groups $\Gamma_2(q)=L_q = {\mathbb Z}_q \wr {\mathbb Z}$ have property $R_{\infty}$ if and only if $(q,6) \neq 1$.
We describe a family of finitely presented groups which are quasi-isometric but not bilipschitz equivalent. The first such examples were described by the first author and are the lamplighter groups $F \wr \mathbb{Z}$ where $F$ is a finite group; these groups are finitely generated but not finitely presented. The examples presented in this paper are higher rank generalizations of these lamplighter groups and include groups that are of type $F_n$ for any $n$.
We generalize the notion of a graph automatic group introduced by Kharlampovich, Khoussainov and Miasnikov (arXiv:1107.3645) by replacing the regular languages in their definition with more powerful language classes. For a fixed language class $\mathcal C$, we call the resulting groups $\mathcal C$-graph automatic. We prove that the class of $\mathcal C$-graph automatic groups is closed under change of generating set, direct and free product for certain classes $\mathcal C$. We show that for quasi-realtime counter-graph automatic groups where normal forms have length that is linear in the geodesic length, there is an algorithm to compute normal forms (and therefore solve the word problem) in polynomial time. The class of quasi-realtime counter-graph automatic groups includes all Baumslag-Solitar groups, and the free group of countably infinite rank. Context-sensitive-graph automatic groups are shown to be a very large class, which encompasses, for example, groups with unsolvable conjugacy problem, the Grigorchuk group, and Thompson's groups $F,T$ and $V$.
In this paper we investigate metric properties of the groups $\Gamma_d(q)$ whose Cayley graphs are the Diestel-Leader graphs $DL_d(q)$ with respect to a given generating set $S_{d,q}$. These groups provide a geometric generalization of the family of lamplighter groups, whose Cayley graphs with respect to a certain generating set are the Diestel-Leader graphs $DL_2(q)$. Bartholdi, Neuhauser and Woess in \cite{BNW} show that for $d \geq 3$, $\Gamma_d(q)$ is of type $F_{d-1}$ but not $F_d$. We show below that these groups have dead end elements of arbitrary depth with respect to the generating set $S_{d,q}$, as well as infinitely many cone types and hence no regular language of geodesics. These results are proven using a combinatorial formula to compute the word length of group elements with respect to $S_{d,q}$ which is also proven in the paper and relies on the geometry of the Diestel-Leader graphs.
We give the first examples of groups which admit a tame combing with linear radial tameness function with respect to any choice of finite presentation, but which are not minimally almost convex on a standard generating set. Namely, we explicitly construct such combings for Thompson's group F and the Baumslag-Solitar groups BS(1, p) with p \ge 3. In order to make this construction for Thompson's group F, we significantly expand the understanding of the Cayley complex of this group with respect to the standard finite presentation. In particular we describe a quasigeodesic set of normal forms and combinatorially classify the arrangements of 2-cells adjacent to edges that do not lie on normal form paths.
We produce a sequence of markings $S_k$ of Thompson's group $F$ within the space ${\mathcal G}_n$ of all marked $n$-generator groups so that the sequence $(F,S_k)$ converges to the free group on $n$ generators, for $n \geq 3$. In addition, we give presentations for the limits of some other natural (convergent) sequences of markings to consider on $F$ within ${\mathcal G}_3$, including $(F,\{x_0,x_1,x_n\})$ and $(F,\{x_0,x_1,x_0^n\})$.
A generalized Baumslag-Solitar group is the fundamental group of a graph of groups all of whose vertex and edge groups are infinite cyclic. Levitt proves that any generalized Baumslag-Solitar group has property R-infinity, that is, any automorphism has an infinite number of twisted conjugacy classes. We show that any group quasi-isometric to a generalized Baumslag-Solitar group also has property R-infinity. This extends work of the authors proving that any group quasi-isometric to a solvable Baumslag-Solitar BS(1,n) group has property R-infinity, and relies on the classification of generalized Baumslag-Solitar groups given by Whyte.
We give a geometric proof based on recent work of Eskin, Fisher and Whyte that the lamplighter group $L_n$ has infinitely many twisted conjugacy classes for any automorphism $\vp$ only when $n$ is divisible by 2 or 3, originally proved by Gon\c{c}alves and Wong. We determine when the wreath product $G \wr \Z$ has this same property for several classes of finite groups $G$, including symmetric groups and some nilpotent groups.
We prove that Thompson's group F is not minimally almost convex with respect to any generating set which is a subset of the standard infinite generating set for F and which contains x_1. We use this to show that F is not almost convex with respect to any generating set which is a subset of the standard infinite generating set.
We consider random subgroups of Thompson's group $F$ with respect to two natural stratifications of the set of all $k$ generator subgroups. We find that the isomorphism classes of subgroups which occur with positive density are not the same for the two stratifications. We give the first known examples of {\em persistent} subgroups, whose isomorphism classes occur with positive density within the set of $k$-generator subgroups, for all sufficiently large $k$. Additionally, Thompson's group provides the first example of a group without a generic isomorphism class of subgroup. Elements of $F$ are represented uniquely by reduced pairs of finite rooted binary trees. We compute the asymptotic growth rate and a generating function for the number of reduced pairs of trees, which we show is D-finite and not algebraic. We then use the asymptotic growth to prove our density results.
We introduce a new method for computing the word length of an element of Thompson's group F with respect to a "consecutive" generating set of the form X_n={x_0,x_1,...,x_n}, which is a subset of the standard infinite generating set for F. We use this method to show that (F,X_n) is not almost convex, and has pockets of increasing, though bounded, depth dependent on n.