Numerical upper bounds on growth of automaton groups

The growth of a finitely generated group is an important geometric invariant which has been studied for decades. It can be either polynomial, for a well-understood class of groups, or exponential, for most groups studied by geometers, or intermediate, that is between polynomial and exponential. Despite recent spectacular progresses, the class of groups with intermediate growth remains largely mysterious. Many examples of such groups are constructed using Mealy automata. The aim of this paper is to give an algorithmic procedure to study the growth of such automaton groups, and more precisely to provide numerical upper bounds on their exponents. Our functions retrieve known optimal bounds on the famous first Grigorchuk group. They also improve known upper bounds on other automaton groups and permitted us to discover several new examples of automaton groups of intermediate growth. All the algorithms described are implemented in GAP, a language dedicated to computational group theory.

Hausdorff dimension of the second Grigorchuk group

We show that the Hausdorff dimension of the closure of the second Grigorchuk group is 43/128. Furthermore, we establish that the second Grigorchuk group is super strongly fractal and that its automorphism group equals its normalizer in the full automorphism group of the tree.

Linear time algorithm for the conjugacy problem in the first Grigorchuk group

We prove that the conjugacy problem in the first Grigorchuk group [Formula: see text] can be solved in linear time. Furthermore, the problem to decide if a list of elements [Formula: see text] contains a pair of conjugate elements can be solved in linear time. We also show that a conjugator for a pair of conjugate element [Formula: see text] can be found in polynomial time.

Generalized Grigorchuk’s overgroups as points in the space of marked 8-generated groups

First Grigorchuk group [Formula: see text] and Grigorchuk’s overgroup [Formula: see text], introduced in 1980, are self-similar branch groups with intermediate growth. In 1984, [Formula: see text] was used to construct the family of generalized Grigorchuk groups [Formula: see text], which has many remarkable properties. Following this construction, we generalize the Grigorchuk’s overgroup [Formula: see text] to the family [Formula: see text] of generalized Grigorchuk’s overgroups. We consider these groups as 8-generated and describe the closure of this family in the space [Formula: see text] of marked [Formula: see text]-generated groups.

On subset sum problem in branch groups

We consider a group-theoretic analogue of the classic subset sum problem. In this brief note, we show that the subset sum problem is NP-complete in the first Grigorchuk group. More generally, we show NP-hardness of that problem in weakly regular branch groups, which implies NP-completeness if the group is, in addition, contracting. Comment: v3: final version for journal of Groups, Complexity, Cryptology. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1703.07406

BRANCH GROUPS, ORBIT GROWTH, AND SUBGROUP GROWTH TYPES FOR PRO- GROUPS

In their book Subgroup Growth, Lubotzky and Segal asked: What are the possible types of subgroup growth of the pro- $p$ group? In this paper, we construct certain extensions of the Grigorchuk group and the Gupta–Sidki groups, which have all possible types of subgroup growth between $n^{(\log n)^{2}}$ and $e^{n}$ . Thus, we give an almost complete answer to Lubotzky and Segal’s question. In addition, we show that a class of pro- $p$ branch groups, including the Grigorchuk group and the Gupta–Sidki groups, all have subgroup growth type $n^{\log n}$ .

Log-space conjugacy problem in the Grigorchuk group

In this paper we prove that the conjugacy problem in the Grigorchuk group Γ has log-space complexity.

On strongly just infinite profinite branch groups

For profinite branch groups, we first demonstrate the equivalence of the Bergman property, uncountable cofinality, Cayley boundedness, the countable index property, and the condition that every non-trivial normal subgroup is open; compact groups enjoying the last condition are called strongly just infinite. For strongly just infinite profinite branch groups with mild additional assumptions, we verify the invariant automatic continuity property and the locally compact automatic continuity property. Examples are then presented, including the profinite completion of the first Grigorchuk group. As an application, we show that many Burger–Mozes universal simple groups enjoy several automatic continuity properties.