Excursions of Generic Geodesics in Right-Angled Artin Groups and Graph Products

Motivated by the notion of cusp excursion in geometrically finite hyperbolic manifolds, we define a notion of excursion in any subgroup of a given group and study its asymptotic distribution for right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs) and graph products. In particular, for any irreducible RAAG we show that with respect to the counting measure, the maximal excursion of a generic geodesic in any flat tends to $\log n$, where $n$ is the length of the geodesic. In this regard, irreducible RAAGs behave like a free product of groups. In fact, we show that the asymptotic distribution of excursions detects the growth rate of the RAAG and whether it is reducible.

On the cyclic subgroup separability of the free product of two groups with commuting subgroups

Let G be the free product of groups A and B with commuting subgroups H ≤ A and K ≤ B, and let 𝒞 be the class of all finite groups or the class of all finite p-groups. We derive the description of all 𝒞-separable cyclic subgroups of G provided this group is residually a 𝒞-group. We prove, in particular, that if A, B are finitely generated nilpotent groups and H, K are p′-isolated in the free factors, then all p′-isolated cyclic subgroups of G are separable in the class of all finite p-groups. The same statement is true provided A, B are free and H, K are p′-isolated and cyclic.

Automatic Continuity for Homomorphisms into Free Products

A homomorphism from a completely metrizable topological group into a free product of groups whose image is not contained in a factor of the free product is shown to be continuous with respect to the discrete topology on the range. In particular, any completely metrizable group topology on a free product is discrete.

CRITICAL PERCOLATION OF FREE PRODUCT OF GROUPS

In this article we study percolation on the Cayley graph of a free product of groups. The critical probability pc of a free product G1 * G2 * ⋯ * Gn of groups is found as a solution of an equation involving only the expected subcritical cluster size of factor groups G1, G2, …, Gn. For finite groups this equation is polynomial and can be explicitly written down. The expected subcritical cluster size of the free product is also found in terms of the subcritical cluster sizes of the factors. In particular, we prove that pc for the Cayley graph of the modular group PSL2(ℤ) (with the standard generators) is 0.5199…, the unique root of the polynomial 2p5 - 6p4 + 2p3 + 4p2 - 1 in the interval (0, 1). In the case when groups Gi can be "well approximated" by a sequence of quotient groups, we show that the critical probabilities of the free product of these approximations converge to the critical probability of G1 * G2 * ⋯ * Gn and the speed of convergence is exponential. Thus for residually finite groups, for example, one can restrict oneself to the case when each free factor is finite. We show that the critical point, introduced by Schonmann, p exp of the free product is just the minimum of p exp for the factors.

The palindromic width of a free product of groups

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.