Coarse properties of graphs

We count the finitely generated subgroups of the modular group [Formula: see text]. More precisely, each such subgroup [Formula: see text] can be represented by its Stallings graph [Formula: see text], we consider the number of vertices of [Formula: see text] to be the size of [Formula: see text] and we count the subgroups of size [Formula: see text]. Since an index [Formula: see text] subgroup has size [Formula: see text], our results generalize the known results on the enumeration of the finite index subgroups of [Formula: see text]. We give asymptotic equivalents for the number of finitely generated subgroups of [Formula: see text], as well as of the number of finite index subgroups, free subgroups and free finite index subgroups. We also give the expected value of the isomorphism type of a size [Formula: see text] subgroup and prove a large deviation statement concerning this value. Similar results are proved for finite index and for free subgroups. Finally, we show how to efficiently generate uniformly at random a size [Formula: see text] subgroup (respectively, finite index subgroup, free subgroup) of [Formula: see text].

Algorithms for Matrix Groups and the Tits Alternative

Coherence, subgroup separability, and metacyclic structures for a class of cyclically presented groups

We show that an infinite residually finite boundedly generated group has an infinite chain of finite index subgroups with ranks uniformly bounded, and give (sublinear) upper bounds on the ranks of arbitrary finite index subgroups of boundedly generated groups (examples that come close to achieving these bounds are presented). This proves a strong form of a conjecture of Abert, Jaikin-Zapirain, and Nikolov that asserts that the rank gradient of infinite boundedly generated residually finite groups is zero. Furthermore, our first result establishes a variant of a conjecture of Lubotzky on the ranks of finite index subgroups of special linear groups over the integers, and is analogous to a result of Pyber and Segal for solvable groups.

Given an infinite group G, we consider the finitely additive invariant measure defined on finite unions of cosets of finite index subgroups. We show that this shares many properties with the size of subsets of a finite group, for instance we can obtain equivalent results on the Ruzsa distance and product free sets. In particular, if G has infinitely many finite index subgroups, then it has subsets S of measure arbitrarily close to 1/2 with square S2 having measure less than 1. We also examine properties of the Ruzsa distance on the set of finite index subgroups of an infinite group, whereupon it becomes a genuine metric.

Let Γ < SL n ( $$\mathbb{Z}$$ ) be a subgroup of finite index, where n ≥ 5. Suppose Γ acts continuously on a manifold M, where π1(M) = $$\mathbb{Z}$$ n , preserving a measure that is positive on open sets. Further assume that the induced Γ action on H 1(M) is non-trivial. We show there exists a finite index subgroup Γ′ < Γ and a Γ′ equivariant continuous map ψ : M → $$\mathbb{T}$$ n that induces an isomorphism on fundamental group. We prove more general results providing continuous quotients in cases where π1(M) surjects onto a finitely generated torsion free nilpotent group. We also give some new examples of manifolds with Γ actions.

This meeting was focused on asymptotic aspects of group theory. The resulting problems lead, in particular, to the study of infinite groups, with an emphasis on the asymptotic behaviour of their finite quotients. Also, properties of infinite families of finite groups are at the center of interest in the field. We had talks on the most important recent developments in the field of asymptotic and profinite group theory. We single out some of these new results. The classification of finite simple groups has provided an impetus for the detailed investigation of properties of families of groups of Lie type and of alternating groups. This has produced many results of asymptotic or probabilistic nature, describing in a quantitative way properties that hold for all sufficiently large simple groups, or else that hold ‘almost surely’ as the orders of the groups are tending to infinity. Here we had a talk of Aner Shalev on his recent solution (with coauthors) of Ore's conjecture. Recently there has been much activity in the study of infinite groups, with an emphasis on the asymptotic behaviour of their finite quotients, or their finite-index subgroups. The theory of subgroup growth is now well established; the theory of the associated zeta functions is making good progress. More subtle variations of subgroup growth are also developing into significant theories in their own right: there are important new results on representation growth – of arithmetic groups, nilpotent groups and pro-p groups; and on maximal subgroup growth, with applications to probabilistic generation properties. Profinite groups are ‘asymptotic limits’ of finite groups. The nature of verbal subgroups and verbal mappings, in both finite and profinite groups, has been the focus of much recent work. This has led among other things to the solution of Serre's problem on subgroups of finite index in finitely generated profinite groups; other significant results include the characterisation of closed verbal subgroups in pro-p groups and new characterisations of solubility in finite groups. Branch groups, both discrete and profinite, are certain groups of automorphisms of rooted trees; introduced by Grigorchuk and others over 20 years ago, they have provided the solution to several outstanding problems, and their study continues to provide new results. Some of them were reported on in our meeting. We also had talks from important fields of mathematics in which profinite and asymptotic group theory finds application. There is, for instance, the study of the absolute Galois group of the rationals and in particular its closed pro-p subgroups. Methods from pro-p group theory have successfully been applied in order to understand fundamental groups of (hyperbolic) 3-manifolds. The interplay between the topological fundamental group of a complex algebraic surface and its profinite completion which is the etale fundamental group of the surface is the subject of recent research. We believe that the meeting was exciting and successful. The high quality lectures covered a lot of very recent results in the field. There were many intense discussions between mathematicians of different fields. Altogether there were over 50 participants from all over the world. The percentage of young researchers was very high. The following extended abstracts were collected and edited by Dr. Evija Ribnere.

Characterizing enzyme sequences and identifying their active sites is a very important task. The current experimental methods are too expensive and labor intensive to handle the rapidly accumulating protein sequences and structure data. Thus accurate, high-throughput in silico methods for identifying catalytic residues and enzyme function prediction are much needed. In this paper, we propose a novel sequence-based catalytic domain prediction method using a sequence clustering and an information-theoretic approaches. The first step is to perform the sequence clustering analysis of enzyme sequences from the same functional category (those with the same EC label). The clustering analysis is used to handle the problem of widely varying sequence similarity levels in enzyme sequences. The clustering analysis constructs a sequence graph where nodes are enzyme sequences and edges are a pair of sequences with a certain degree of sequence similarity, and uses graph properties, such as biconnected components and articulation points, to generate sequence segments common to the enzyme sequences. Then amino acid subsequences in the common shared regions are aligned and then an information theoretic approach called aggregated column related scoring scheme is performed to highlight potential active sites in enzyme sequences. The aggregated information content scoring scheme is shown to be effective to highlight residues of active sites effectively. The proposed method of combining the clustering and the aggregated information content scoring methods was successful in highlighting known catalytic sites in enzymes of Escherichia coli K12 in terms of the Catalytic Site Atlas database. Our method is shown to be not only accurate in predicting potential active sites in the enzyme sequences but also computationally efficient since the clustering approach utilizes two graph properties that can be computed in linear to the number of edges in the sequence graph and computation of mutual information does not require much time. We believe that the proposed method can be useful for identifying active sites of enzyme sequences from many genome projects.

A subgroup H H of a group G G is elliptically embedded in G G if for each subgroup K K of G G there is an integer n = n ( K ) n = n(K) such that ⟨ H , K ⟩ = H K ⋯ H K \left \langle {H,K} \right \rangle = HK \cdots HK , where the product has 2 n 2n factors. It is shown that a subgroup H H of a polycyclic by finite group G G is elliptically embedded in G G if and only if H H is subnormal in some subgroup of finite index in G G .

We classify the finite groups G such that the unit group of the integral group ring ZG contains a subgroup of finite index which is the direct product of free products of abelian groups. The latter problem is also investigated for any order in an arbitrary semisimple finite dimensional Q-algebra.

We consider the coset poset associated with the families of proper subgroups, proper subgroups of finite index and proper normal subgroups of finite index. We investigate under which conditions those coset posets have contractible geometric realizations.

Let G be a compact Hausdorff group and n a positive integer. It is proved that all subnormal subgroups of G of index dividing n are open if and only if there are only finitely many such subgroups, and that all subgroups of finite index in G are open if and only if there are only countably many such subgroups.

A profinite group is called strongly complete if every subgroup of finite index is open and of type (AF) if it has only finitely many subgroups of any fixed index. In this paper it is shown that a topologically finitely generated abelian by pro-nilpotent profinite group is strongly complete, and that a pro-solvable profinite group is strongly complete if is of type (AF).

On a question of Serre

In this note we present a very simple method of proving that some hyperbolic manifoldsM have finite sheeted covers with positive first Betti number. The method applies to the standard arithmetic subgroups ofSO(n,1) (a case which was proved previously by Millson [Mi]), to the non-arithmetic lattices inSO(n,1) constructed by Gromov and Piatetski-Shapiro [GPS] and to groups generated by reflections. In all these cases we actually show that Γ=π1(M) has a finite index subgroup which is mapped onto a nonabelian free group.