This note contains some remarks on generating pairs for automorphism groups of free groups. There has been significant use of electronic assistance. Little of this is used to verify the results.

An enumeration result for orientably regular hypermaps of a given type with automorphism groups isomorphic to PSL(2,q) or PGL(2,q) can be extracted from a 1969 paper by Sah. We extend the investigation to orientable reflexible hypermaps and to nonorientable regular hypermaps, providing many more details about the associated computations and explicit generating sets for the associated groups.

We prove that a finitely generated semigroup whose word problem is a one-counter language has a linear growth function. This provides us with a very strong restriction on the structure of such a semigroup, which, in particular, yields an elementary proof of a result of Herbst, that a group with a one-counter word problem is virtually cyclic. We prove also that the word problem of a group is an intersection of finitely many one-counter languages if and only if the group is virtually abelian.

For a group G and a real number x≥1 we let sG(x) denote the number of indices ≤x of subgroups of G. We call the function sG the subgroup density of G, and initiate a study of its asymptotics and its relation to the algebraic structure of G. We also count indices ≤x of maximal subgroups of G, and relate it to symmetric and alternating quotients of G.

A star is a planar set of three lines through a common point in which the angle between each pair is 60∘.A set of lines through a point in which the angle between each pair of lines is 60 or 90∘ is star-closed if for every pair of its lines at 60∘ the set contains the third line of the star. In 1976 Cameron, Goethals, Seidel and Shult showed that the indecomposable star-closed sets in Euclidean space are the root systems of types An, Dn, E6, E7 and E8. This result was a key part of their determination of all graphs with least eigenvalue −2. Subsequently, Cvetković, Rowlinson and Simić determined all star-closed extensions of these line systems. We generalize this result on extensions of line systems to complex n-space equipped with a hermitian inner product. There is one further infinite family, and two exceptional types arising from Burkhardt and Mitchell’s complex reflection groups in dimensions five and six. The proof is a geometric version of Mitchell’s classification of complex reflection groups in dimensions greater than four.

An extension of a result of Sela shows that if Γ is a torsion-free word hyperbolic group, then the only homomorphisms Γ→Γ with finite-index image are the automorphisms. It follows from this result and properties of quasiregular mappings, that if M is a closed Riemannian n-manifold with negative sectional curvature (), then every quasiregular mapping f:M→M is a homeomorphism. In the constant-curvature case the dimension restriction is not necessary and Mostow rigidity implies that f is homotopic to an isometry. This is to be contrasted with the fact that every such manifold admits a non-homeomorphic light open self-mapping. We present similar results for more general quotients of hyperbolic space and quasiregular mappings between them. For instance, we establish that besides covering projections there are no π1-injective proper quasiregular mappings f:M→N between hyperbolic 3-manifolds M and N with non-elementary fundamental group.

An element in a free group is a proper power if and only if it is a proper power in every nilpotent factor group. Moreover there is an algorithm to decide if an element in a finitely generated torsion-free nilpotent group is a proper power.

This paper concerns parabolic submonoids of a class of monoids known as singular Artin monoids. The latter class includes the singular braid monoid— a geometric extension of the braid group, which was created for the sole purpose of studying Vassiliev invariants in knot theory. However, those monoids may also be construed (and indeed, are defined) as a formal extension of Artin groups which, in turn, naturally generalise braid groups. It is the case, by van der Lek and Paris, that standard parabolic subgroups of Artin groups are canonically isomorphic to Artin groups. This naturally invites us to consider whether the same holds for parabolic submonoids of singular Artin monoids. We show that it is in fact true when the corresponding Coxeter matrix is of ‘type FC’ hence generalising Corran's result in the ‘finite type’ case.

Palindromes are those reduced words of free products of groups that coincide with their reverse words. We prove that a free product of groups G has infinite palindromic width, provided that G is not the free product of two cyclic groups of order two (Theorem 2.4). This means that there is no uniform bound k such that every element of G is a product of at most k palindromes. Earlier, the similar fact was established for non-abelian free groups. The proof of Theorem 2.4 makes use of the ideas by Rhemtulla developed for the study of the widths of verbal subgroups of free products.

The aim of this work is to offer a new characterization of the Hilbert symbol Q*p from the commutator of a certain central extension of groups. We obtain a characterization for Q*p (p≠2) and a different one for Q*2.

We define a notion of conjugacy in singular Artin moniods, and solve the corresponding conjugacy problem for finite types. We sgiw that this definition is appropriate to describe type (1) singular Markov moves on singular braids. Parabolic submonoids of singular Artin monoids are defined and, in finite type, are shown to be singular Artin monoids. Solutions to conjugacy-type problems of parabolic submonoids are described. Geometric objects defined by Fenn, Rolfsen and Zhu, called (j, k)-bands, are algebraically characterised, and a procedure is given which determines when a word represents a (j, k)-band.

The conjugacy classes of so-called special involutions parameterize the constituents of the action of a finite Coxeter group on the cohomology of the complement of its complexified hyperplane arrangement. In this note we give a short intrinsic characterisation of special involutions in terms of so-called bulky parabolic subgroups.

In this paper we prove that if V is a vector space over a field of positive characteristric p ≠ 5 then any regular subgroup A of exponent 5 of GL(V) is cyclic. As a consequence a conjecture of Gupta and Mazurov is proved to be true.

In this paper we consider groups in which every subgroup has finite index in the nth term of its normal closure series, for a fixed integer n. We prove that such a group is the extension of a finite normal subgroup by a nilpotent group, whose class is bounded in terms of n only, provided it is either periodic or torsion-free.

In the present paper we consider Fitting classes of finite soluble groups which locally satisfy additional conditions related to the behaviour of their injectors. More precisely, we study Fitting classes 1 ≠⊆such that an-injector of G is, respectively, a normal, (sub)modular, normally embedded, system permutable subgroup of G for all G ∈.

Locally normal Fitting classes were studied before by various authors. Here we prove that some important results—already known for normality—are valid for all of the above mentioned embedding properties. For instance, all these embedding properties behave nicely with respect to the Lockett section. Further, for all of these properties the class of all finite soluble groups G such that an x-injector of G has the corresponding embedding property is not closed under forming normal products, and thus can fail to be a Fitting class.

Generalizing and strengthening some well-known results of Higman, B. Neumann, Hanna Neumann and Dark on embeddings into two-generator groups, we introduce a construction of subnormal verbal embedding of an arbitrary (soluble, fully ordered or torsion free) ordered countable group into a twogenerator ordered group with these properties. Further, we establish subnormal verbal embedding of defect two of an arbitrary (soluble, fully ordered or torsion free) ordered group G into a group with these properties and of the same cardinality as G, and show in connection with a problem of Heineken that the defect of such an embedding cannot be made smaller, that is, such verbal embeddings of ordered groups cannot in general be normal.

If ω ≡ 1 is a group law implying virtual nilpotence in every finitely generated metabelian group satisfying it, then it implies virtual nilpotence for the finitely generated groups of a large class of groups including all residually or locally soluble-or-finite groups. In fact the groups of satisfying such a law are all nilpotent-by-finite exponent where the nilpotency class and exponent in question are both bounded above in terms of the length of ω alone. This yields a dichotomy for words. Finally, if the law ω ≡ 1 satisfies a certain additional condition—obtaining in particular for any monoidal or Engel law—then the conclusion extends to the much larger class consisting of all ‘locally graded’ groups.

Let and denote respectively the variety of groups of exponent dividing e, the variety of nilpotent groups of class at most c, the class of nilpotent groups and the class of finite groups. It follows from a result due to Kargapolov and Čurkin and independently to Groves that in a variety not containing all metabelian groups, each polycyclic group G belongs to . We show that G is in fact in , where c is an integer depending only on the variety. On the other hand, it is not always possible to find an integer e (depending only on the variety) such that G belongs to but we characterize the varieties in which that is possible. In this case, there exists a function f such that, if G is d-generated, then G ∈ So, when e = 1, we obtain an extension of Zel'manov's result about the restricted Burnside problem (as one might expect, this result is used in our proof). Finally, we show that the class of locally nilpotent groups of a variety forms a variety if and only if for some integers c′, e′.

The graph product of a family of groups lies somewhere between their direct and free products, with the graph determining which pairs of groups commute. We show that the graph product of quasi-lattice ordered groups is quasi-lattice ordered, and, when the underlying groups are amenable, that it satisfies Nica's amenability condition for quasi-lattice orders. The associated Toeplitz algebras have a universal property, and their representations are faithful if the generating isometries satisfy a joint properness condition. When applied to right-angled Artin groups this yields a uniqueness theorem for the C*-algebra generated by a collection of isometries such that any two of them either *-commute or else have orthogonal ranges. The analogous result fails to hold for the nonabelian Artin groups of finite type considered by Brieskorn and Saito, and Deligne.

We provide an upper bound for the order of a nilpotent injector of a finite solvable group with Fitting subgroup of order n. We also show that the same bound is an upper bound for the number of conjugacy classes, provided that the k(G V)-conjecture holds for solvable G all primes dividing n.