We prove that virtually free groups are precisely the hyperbolic groups admitting a language of geodesic words containing a unique representative for each group element with bounded triangles. Equivalently, these are exactly the hyperbolic groups for which the model for the Gromov boundary defined by Silva is well defined.

We extend the notion of ascent-compatibility from symmetric groups to all Coxeter groups, thereby providing a type-independent framework for constructing families of modules of $0$-Hecke algebras. We apply this framework in type B to give representation–theoretic interpretations of a number of noteworthy families of type-B quasisymmetric functions. Next, we construct modules of the type-B $0$-Hecke algebra corresponding to type-B analogs of Schur functions and introduce a type-B analog of Schur Q-functions; we prove that these shifted domino functions expand positively in the type-B peak functions. We define a type-B analog of the $0$-Hecke–Clifford algebra, and we use this to provide representation–theoretic interpretations for both the type-B peak functions and the shifted domino functions. We consider the modules of this algebra induced from type-B $0$-Hecke modules constructed via ascent-compatibility and prove a general formula, in terms of type-B peak functions, for the type-B quasisymmetric characteristics of the restrictions of these modules.

In this article, we generalize results of Clozel and Ray (for $SL_2$ and $SL_n$, respectively) to give explicit ring-theoretic presentation in terms of a complete set of generators and relations of the Iwasawa algebra of the pro-p Iwahori subgroup of a simple, simply connected, split group $\mathbf {G}$ over ${{\mathbb Q}_p}$.

A nontrivial element of a group is a generalized torsion element if some products of its conjugates is the identity. The minimum number of such conjugates is called a generalized torsion order. We provide several restrictions for generalized torsion orders by using the Alexander polynomial.

An element of a group is called reversible if it is conjugate to its own inverse. Reversible elements are closely related to strongly reversible elements, which can be expressed as a product of two involutions. In this paper, we classify the reversible and strongly reversible elements in the quaternionic special linear group $ \mathrm {SL}(n,\mathbb {H})$ and quaternionic projective linear group $ \mathrm {PSL}(n,\mathbb {H})$. We prove that an element of $ \mathrm {SL}(n,\mathbb {H})$ (resp. $ \mathrm {PSL}(n,\mathbb {H})$) is reversible if and only if it is a product of two skew-involutions (resp. involutions).

Let $\Gamma $ be a finitely generated group of matrices over $\mathbb {C}$. We construct an isometric action of $\Gamma $ on a complete $\mathrm {CAT}(0)$ space such that the restriction of this action to any subgroup of $\Gamma $ containing no nontrivial unipotent elements is well behaved. As an application, we show that if M is a graph manifold that does not admit a nonpositively curved Riemannian metric, then any finite-dimensional $\mathbb {C}$-linear representation of $\pi _1(M)$ maps a nontrivial element of $\pi _1(M)$ to a unipotent matrix. In particular, the fundamental groups of such 3-manifolds do not admit any faithful finite-dimensional unitary representations.

We define an involution on the elliptic space of tempered unipotent representations of inner twists of a split simple $p$-adic group $G$ and investigate its behaviour with respect to restrictions to reductive quotients of maximal compact open subgroups. In particular, we formulate a precise conjecture about the relation with a version of Lusztig's nonabelian Fourier transform on the space of unipotent representations of the (possibly disconnected) reductive quotients of maximal compact subgroups. We give evidence for the conjecture, including proofs for ${\mathsf {SL}}_n$ and ${\mathsf {PGL}}_n$.

Let $\mathbf {G}$ be a connected reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field $\Bbbk $ and ${\mathbf B}$ be a Borel subgroup of ${\mathbf G}$. In this paper, we completely determine the composition factors of the permutation module $\mathbb {F}[{\mathbf G}/{\mathbf B}]$ for any field $\mathbb {F}$.

The group of order-preserving automorphisms of a finitely generated Archimedean ordered group of rank $2$ is either infinite cyclic or trivial according as the ratio in $\mathbb {R}$ of the generators of the subgroup is or is not quadratic over $\mathbb {Q}.$ In the case of an Archimedean ordered group of rank $2$ that is not finitely generated, the group of order-preserving automorphisms is free abelian. Criteria determining the rank of this free abelian group are established.

We give a precise classification, in terms of Shimura data, of all $1$-dimensional Shimura subvarieties of a moduli space of polarized abelian varieties.

We introduce the concept of almost $\mathcal {P}$-numbers where $\mathcal {P}$ is a class of groups. We survey the existing results in the literature for almost cyclic numbers, and give characterisations for almost abelian and almost nilpotent numbers proving these two concepts are equivalent.

Let G be a finite group and r be a prime divisor of the order of G. An irreducible character of G is said to be quasi r-Steinberg if it is non-zero on every r-regular element of G. A quasi r-Steinberg character of degree $\displaystyle |Syl_r(G)|$ is said to be weak r-Steinberg if it vanishes on the r-singular elements of $G.$ In this article, we classify the quasi r-Steinberg cuspidal characters of the general linear group $GL(n,q).$ Then we characterize the quasi r-Steinberg characters of $GL(2,q)$ and $GL(3,q).$ Finally, we obtain a classification of the weak r-Steinberg characters of $GL(n,q).$

Let $H\le F$ be two finitely generated free groups. Given $g\in F$, we study the ideal $\mathfrak I_g$ of equations for g with coefficients in H, i.e. the elements $w(x)\in H*\langle x\rangle$ such that $w(g)=1$ in F. The ideal $\mathfrak I_g$ is a normal subgroup of $H*\langle x\rangle$, and it’s possible to algorithmically compute a finite normal generating set for $\mathfrak I_g$; we give a description of one such algorithm, based on Stallings folding operations. We provide an algorithm to find an equation in w(x)\in$\mathfrak I_g$ with minimum degree, i.e.  such that its cyclic reduction contains the minimum possible number of occurrences of x and x−1; this answers a question of A. Rosenmann and E. Ventura. More generally, we show how to algorithmically compute the set Dg of all integers d such that $\mathfrak I_g$ contains equations of degree d; we show that Dg coincides, up to a finite set, with either $\mathbb N$ or $2\mathbb N$. Finally, we provide examples to illustrate the techniques introduced in this paper. We discuss the case where ${\text{rank}}(H)=1$. We prove that both kinds of sets Dg can actually occur. We show that the equations of minimum possible degree aren’t in general enough to generate the whole ideal $\mathfrak I_g$ as a normal subgroup.

We show that when a finitely presented Bestvina–Brady group splits as an amalgamated product over a subgroup $H$, its defining graph contains an induced separating subgraph whose associated Bestvina–Brady group is contained in a conjugate of $H$.

Given a group G acting faithfully on a set S, we characterize precisely when the twisted Brin–Thompson group SVG is finitely presented. The answer is that SVG is finitely presented if and only if we have the following: G is finitely presented, the action of G on S has finitely many orbits of two-element subsets of S, and the stabilizer in G of any element of S is finitely generated. Since twisted Brin–Thompson groups are simple, a consequence is that any subgroup of a group admitting an action as above satisfies the Boone–Higman conjecture. In the course of proving this, we also establish a sufficient condition for a group acting cocompactly on a simply connected complex to be finitely presented, even if certain edge stabilizers are not finitely generated, which may be of independent interest.

Nilpotency concepts for skew braces are among the main tools with which we are nowadays classifying certain special solutions of the Yang–Baxter equation, a consistency equation that plays a relevant role in quantum statistical mechanics and in many areas of mathematics. In this context, two relevant questions have been raised in F. Cedó, A. Smoktunowicz and L. Vendramin (Skew left braces of nilpotent type. Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 118 (2019), 1367–1392) (see questions 2.34 and 2.35) concerning right- and central nilpotency. The aim of this short note is to give a negative answer to both questions: thus, we show that a finite strong-nil brace B need not be right-nilpotent. On a positive note, we show that there is one (and only one, by our examples) special case of the previous questions that actually holds. In fact, we show that if B is a skew brace of nilpotent type and $b\ \ast \ b=0$ for all $b\in B$, then B is centrally nilpotent.

We obtain an adaptation of Dade’s Conjecture and Späth’s Character Triple Conjecture to unipotent characters of simple, simply connected finite reductive groups of type $\mathbf {A}$, $\mathbf {B}$ and $\mathbf {C}$. In particular, this gives a precise formula for counting the number of unipotent characters of each defect d in any Brauer $\ell $-block B in terms of local invariants associated to e-local structures. This provides a geometric version of the local-global principle in representation theory of finite groups. A key ingredient in our proof is the construction of certain parametrisations of unipotent generalised Harish-Chandra series that are compatible with isomorphisms of character triples.

We continue our study of exponent semigroups of rational matrices. Our main result is that the matricial dimension of a numerical semigroup is at most its multiplicity (the least generator), greatly improving upon the previous upper bound (the conductor). For many numerical semigroups, including all symmetric numerical semigroups, our upper bound is tight. Our construction uses combinatorially structured matrices and is parametrised by Kunz coordinates, which are central to enumerative problems in the study of numerical semigroups.

In this paper, we establish a definitive result which almost completely closes the problem of bounded elementary generation for Chevalley groups of rank $\ge 2$ over arbitrary Dedekind rings R of arithmetic type, with uniform bounds. Namely, we show that for every reduced irreducible root system $\Phi $ of rank $\ge 2$, there exists a universal bound $L=L(\Phi )$ such that the simply connected Chevalley groups $G(\Phi ,R)$ have elementary width $\le L$ for all Dedekind rings of arithmetic type R.

We establish a McKay correspondence for finite and linearly reductive subgroup schemes of ${\mathbf {SL}}_2$ in positive characteristic. As an application, we obtain a McKay correspondence for all rational double point singularities in characteristic $p\geq 7$. We discuss linearly reductive quotient singularities and canonical lifts over the ring of Witt vectors. In dimension 2, we establish simultaneous resolutions of singularities of these canonical lifts via G-Hilbert schemes. In the appendix, we discuss several approaches towards the notion of conjugacy classes for finite group schemes: This is an ingredient in McKay correspondences, but also of independent interest.