In this thesis we study the finite quotients of 3-manifold groups, concerning both residual properties of the groups and the properties of the 3-manifolds that can be detected using finite quotients of the fundamental group. A key theme is the analysis of when two 3-manifold groups can have the same families of finite quotients. We make a detailed study of this 'profinite rigidity' problem for Seifert fibre spaces and prove complete classification results for these manifolds. From Seifert fibre spaces we continue on this trajectory and extend our classification results to all graph manifolds. We illustrate this classification with examples and several consequences, including for graph knots and for mapping class groups. The third part of the thesis concerns the behaviour of the finite p-group quotients of 3-manifold groups. In general these quotients may be scarce and poorly behaved. We give results showing that some of these issues may be resolved by passing to finite-sheeted covers of the manifold involved. We also prove theorems concerning the p-conjugacy separability of certain graph manifold groups. The concluding chapter of the thesis collects other results linking low-dimensional topology and finite quotients of groups. In particular we prove that finite quotients of a right-angled Artin group distinguish it from other right-angled Artin groups, and we give an argument detecting the prime decomposition of certain 3-manifold groups from the finite p-group quotients.

n previous work, the author and his collaborators developed a relationship in the SL(2,C) representation theories of two finitely generated groups with isomorphicprofinite completions assuming a certain strong representation rigidity for one of thegroups. This was then exploited as one part of producing examples of lattices in SL(2,C) which are profinitely rigid. In this article, the relationship is extended to representations in any connected reductive algebraic groups under a weaker representation rigidity hypothesis. The results are applied to lattices in higher rank Liegroups where we show that for some such groups, including SL(n,Z) forn≥3, they are either profinitely rigid, or they contain a proper Grothendieck subgroup.

Extending an explicit result from Bridson–Conder–Reid, this work provides an algorithm for distinguishing finite quotients between cocompact triangle groups Δ ?and lattices Γ of constant curvature symmetric 2-spaces. Much of our attention will be on when these lattices are Fuchsian groups. We prove that it will suffice to take a finite quotient that is Abelian, dihedral, a subgroup of PSL(<i>n</i>,<b>F</b>_<i>q</i>) (for an odd prime power q), or an Abelian extension of one of these 3 groups. For the latter case, we will require and develop an approach for creating group extensions upon a shared finite quotient of Δ? and Γ which between them have differing degrees of smoothness. Furthermore, on the order of a finite quotient that distinguishes between ?Δ and Γ, we are able to establish an effective upperbound that is superexponential depending on the cone orders appearing in each group.<br>

We use profinite Bass-Serre theory (the theory of profinite group actions on profinite trees) to prove that the fundamental groups of finite graphs of free groups which are l-acylindrical and have finitely generated edge groups are conjugacy separable. We apply this theorem to: demonstrate that a generic positive one-relator group is conjugacy separable; produce a variant of the Rips con- struction in which the output group is conjugacy separable; apply this last to exhibit an example of a strong profinite equivalence between two finitely presented groups, one of which is conjugacy separable and the other having unsolvable conjugacy problem. We further use profinite Bass-Serre theory to demonstrate that having one end is an up-weak pro-C property for any extension- closed class C of finite groups. We show by example that it is not a down-weak pro-p property for any prime p. We consider Korenev's definition of pro-p ends for a pro-p group, and show that the number of ends of a finitely generated residually p group cannot be less than the number of pro-p ends of its pro-p completion. We explore possibilities for, but are ultimately unsuc- cessful in giving, a proper analogue of Stallings' theorem for pro-p groups. We ask which other properties might be profinite, and use another variant of the Rips construction to produce examples of patholog- ical groups such that either they are hyperbolic groups which are not residually finite, or neither property (FA) nor property (T) is an up-weak profinite property.

abstract: In 1959, Iwasawa proved that the size of the $p$-part of the class groups of a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension grows as a power of $p$ with exponent ${\mu}p^m+{\lambda}\,m+\nu$ for $m$ sufficiently large. Broadly, I construct conditions to verify if a given $m$ is indeed sufficiently large. More precisely, let $CG_m^i$ (class group) be the $\epsilon_i$-eigenspace component of the $p$-Sylow subgroup of the class group of the field at the $m$-th level in a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension; and let $IACG^i_m$ (Iwasawa analytic class group) be ${\mathbb{Z}_p[[T]]/((1+T)^{p^m}-1,f(T,\omega^{1-i}))}$, where $f$ is the associated Iwasawa power series. It is expected that $CG_m^i$ and $IACG^i_m$ be isomorphic, providing us with a powerful connection between algebraic and analytic techniques; however, as of yet, this isomorphism is unestablished in general. I consider the existence and the properties of an exact sequence $$0\longrightarrow\ker{\longrightarrow}CG_m^i{\longrightarrow}IACG_m^i{\longrightarrow}\textrm{coker}\longrightarrow0.$$ In the case of a $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension where the Main Conjecture is established, there exists a pseudo-isomorphism between the respective inverse limits of $CG_m^i$ and $IACG_m^i$. I consider conditions for when such a pseudo-isomorphism immediately gives the existence of the desired exact sequence, and I also consider work-around methods that preserve cardinality for otherwise. However, I primarily focus on constructing conditions to verify if a given $m$ is sufficiently large that the kernel and cokernel of the above exact sequence have become well-behaved, providing similarity of growth both in the size and in the structure of $CG_m^i$ and $IACG_m^i$; as well as conditions to determine if any such $m$ exists. The primary motivating idea is that if $IACG_m^i$ is relatively easy to work with, and if the relationship between $CG_m^i$ and $IACG_m^i$ is understood; then $CG_m^i$ becomes easier to work with. Moreover, while the motivating framework is stated concretely in terms of the cyclotomic $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extension of $p$-power roots of unity, all results are generally applicable to arbitrary $\mathbb{Z}_p$-extensions as they are developed in terms of Iwasawa-Theory-inspired, yet abstracted, algebraic results on maps between inverse limits. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Mathematics 2013

The present thesis is devoted to the construction of a probability measure which counts the pairs of closed commuting subgroups in infinite groups. This measure turns out to be an extension of what was known in the finite case as subgroup commutativity degree and opens a new approach of study for the class of near abelian groups, recently introduced in [24, 27]. The extremal case of probability one characterises the topologically quasihamiltonian groups, studied originally by K. Iwasawa [30, 31] in the abstract case and then by F. K¨ummich [35, 36, 37], C. Scheiderer [45, 46], P. Diaconis [11] and S. Strunkov [48] in the topological case. Our probability measure turns out to be a useful tool in describing the distance of a profinite group from being topologically quasihamiltonian. We have been inspired by an idea of H. Heyer in the present context of investigation and in fact we generalise some of his techniques, in order to construct a probability measure on the space of closed subgroups of a profinite group. This has been possible because the space of closed subgroups of a profinite group may be approximated by finite spaces and the consequence is that our probability measure may be approximated by finite probability measures. While we have a satisfactory description for profinite groups and compact groups, the case of locally compact groups remains open in its generality.

The main result of this thesis is an original proof that every word has finite width in a compact $p$-adic analytic group. The proof we give here is an alternative to Andrei Jaikin-Zapirain's recent proof of the same result, and utilises entirely group-theoretical ideas. We accomplish this by reducing the problem to a proof that every word has finite width in a profinite group which is virtually a polycyclic pro-$p$ group. To obtain this latter result we first establish that such a group can be embedded as an open subgroup of a group of the form $N_1M_1$, where $N_1$ is a finitely generated closed normal nilpotent subgroup, and $M_1$ is a finitely generated closed nilpotent-by-finite subgroup; we then adapt a method of V. A. Romankov. As a corollary we note that our approach also proves that every word has finite width in a polycyclic-by-finite group (which is not profinite). As a supplementary result we show that for finitely generated closed subgroups $H$ and $K$ of a profinite group the commutator subgroup $[H,K]$ is closed, and give examples to show that various hypotheses are necessary. This implies that the outer-commutator words have finite width in profinite groups of finite rank. We go on to establish some bounds for this width. In addition, we show that every word has finite width in a product of a nilpotent group of finite rank and a virtually nilpotent group of finite rank. We consider the possible application of this to soluble minimax groups.

This dissertation is devoted to the study of self-similar groups and related topics. It consists of three parts. The first part is devoted to the study of examples of finitely generated amenable groups for which every finitely presented cover contains non-abelian free subgroups. The study of these examples was motivated by natural questions about finiteness properties of finitely generated groups. We show that many examples of amenable self-similar groups studied in the literature cannot be covered by finitely presented amenable groups. We investigate the class of contracting self-similar groups from this perspective and formulate a general result which is used to detect this property. As an application we show that almost all known examples of groups of intermediate growth cannot be covered by finitely presented amenable groups. The latter is related to the problem of the existence of finitely presented groups of intermediate growth. The second part focuses on the study of one important example of a self-similar group called the first Grigorchuk group G, from the viewpoint of pro finite groups. We investigate finite quotients of this group related to presentations and group (co)homology. As an outcome of this investigation we prove that the pro finite completion G_hat of this group is not finitely presented as a pro finite group. The last part focuses on a class of recursive group presentations known as L-presentations, which appear in the study of self-similar groups. We investigate the relation of such presentations with the normal subgroup structure of finitely presented groups and show that normal subgroups with finite cyclic quotient of finitely presented groups have such presentations. We apply this result to finitely presented indicable groups without free sub-semigroups.

Orientador: Dessislava Hristova Kochloukova / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Matemática Estatística e Computação Científica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-25T09:13:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Rego_YuriSantos_M.pdf: 1142010 bytes, checksum: 548d8ef6ff2800026c8cd65783b81a9f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Neste trabalho estuda-se os principais resultados dados por J. Wilson no artigo "Finite Presentations of Pro-p Groups and Discrete Groups", relacionados à Desigualdade de Golod-¿afarevi? para uma ampla classe de grupos pro-p e abstratos infinitos. Apresentamos a teoria básica de grupos livres abstratos, levando à noção de apresentação de grupos, com foco em apresentações finitas. É feito um estudo sobre grupos profinitos, particularmente no caso pro-p. Abrange-se definições, propriedades algébricas e topológicas básicas, bem como o caso de finitos geradores com o subgrupo de Frattini, e conceitos de completamentos, de grupos pro-p livres, de apresentações de grupos pro-p e de álgebras de grupo completas. No capítulo final estudamos os resultados principais para grupos pro-p e abstratos finitamente apresentáveis, que incluem grupos solúveis e implicações na estrutura de certos grupos satisfazendo a Desigualdade. Os anexos relacionam a teoria aqui apresentada a grupos pro-p de posto finito e homologia e cohomologia de grupos pro-p / Abstract: In this work we study the main results presented by J. Wilson in his paper "Finite Presentations of Pro-p Groups and Discrete Groups", which extend the Golod-¿afarevi? Inequality to a large class of infinite pro-p and abstract groups. In the first chapter we present the basic theory of abstract free groups, focusing on finite presentations. Next we study profinite groups, with focus on pro-p groups. This study ranges from definitions to basic algebraic and topological properties, as well as the cases of finitely generated groups and the Frattini subgroup, and notions of completion, free pro-p groups, presentations of pro-p groups and completed group algebras. In the last chapter we study the main results regarding finite presentations of pro-p and abstract groups, which include soluble groups and implications on the structure of certain groups for which the Inequality holds. In the appendixes we briefly relate the presented theory to pro-p groups of finite rank and homology and cohomology of pro-p groups / Mestrado / Matematica / Mestre em Matemática

Orientador: Dessislava H. Kochloukova / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Instituto de Matematica, Estatistica e Computação Cientifica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-04T14:37:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pinto_AlineGomesdaSilva_D.pdf: 2789516 bytes, checksum: 20f42bafb2b08678ceb88f751e8b275e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Neste trabalho, provamos dois resultados sobre propriedades homológicas de grupos pro-p. O primeiro responde positivamente à conjectura de J. King que afirma que, se G é um grupo pro-p metabeliano finitamente gerado e m um inteiro positivo, então G mergulha como subgrupo fechado em um grupo pro-p metabeliano de tipo homológico F Pm. O segundo resultado caracteriza módulos pro-p B de tipo homológico F P m sobre [[ZpG]], onde G é um grupo pro-p metabeliano topologicamente finitamente gerado, dado pela extensão de um grupo pro-p abeliano A por um grupo pro-p abeliano Q, e B é um [[ZpQ]]-módulo pro-p finitamente gerado que é visto como um [[ZpG]]-módulo pro-p via a projeção de G -t Q. A caracterização é dada em termos do invariante para grupos pro-p metabelianos introduzido por J. King [15] e é uma generalização do caso onde B = Zp é o anel de inteiros p-ádicos considerado como G-módulo trivial, que dá a classificação dos grupos pro-p metabelianos de tipo homológico FPm, provado por D. Kochloukova [18] / Abstract: In this work, we prove two results about homological properties of metabelian pro-p groups. The first one answers positively a conjecture suggested by J. King that, if G is a finitely generated metabelian pro-p group and m a positive integer, G embeds in a metabelian pro-p group of homological type F P m. The second result caracterize the modules B of homological type F P mover [[ZpG]], where G is a topologically finitely generated metabelian pro-p group that is an extension of A by Q, with A and Q abelian, and B is a finitely generated pro-p [[ZpQ]]-module that is viewed as a pro-p [[ZpG]]-module via the projection G -f Q. The characterization is given in terms of the invariant introduced by J. King [15] and is a generalization of the case when B = Zp is considered as a trivial [[ZpG]]-module, that gives the classification of metabelian pro-p groups of type FPm, proved by D. Kochloukova [18] / Doutorado / Matematica / Doutor em Matemática