arXiv subjects

Derek F. Holt

Publications and source records attributed to Derek F. Holt.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv1999

Combing nilpotent and polycyclic groups

A combing is a set of normal forms for a finitely generated group. This article investigates the language-theoretic and geometric properties of combings for nilpotent and polycyclic groups. It is shown that a finitely generated class 2 nilpotent group with cyclic commutator subgroup is real-time combable, as are also all 2 or 3-generated class 2 nilpotent groups, and groups in certain families of nilpotent groups, e.g. the finitely generated Heisenberg groups, groups of unipotent matrices over the integers and the free class 2 nilpotent groups. Further it is shown that any polycyclic-by-finite group embeds in a real-time combable group. All the combings constructed in the article are boundedly asynchronous, and those for nilpotent-by-finite groups have polynomially bounded length functions, of degree equal to the nilpotency class, c. This result verifies a polynomial upper bound on the Dehn functions of those groups of degree c+1.

math.GR↗

arXiv1998

Computation in word-hyperbolic groups

We describe a procedure which verifies that a group given by generators and relators is word-hyperbolic. This procedure always works with a group which is word-hyperbolic, provided there is sufficient memory and time devoted to the problem. If the group is not word-hyperbolic, the procedure continues indefinitely. We also describe a procedure which computes the thinness of geodesic triangles in the Cayley graph of a word-hyperbolic group. Again this procedure is bound to work, given sufficient memory and time.

math.GR↗

arXiv1998

Automatic groups, subgroups and cosets

The history, definition and principal properties of automatic groups and their generalisations to subgroups and cosets are reviewed briefly, mainly from a computational perspective. A result about the asynchronous automaticity of an HNN extension is then proved and applied to an example that was proposed by Mark Sapir.

math.GR↗

arXiv1995

An alternative proof that the Fibonacci group F(2,9) is infinite

This note contains a report of a proof by computer that the Fibonacci group F(2,9) is automatic. The automatic structure can be used to solve the word problem in the group. Furthermore, it can be seen directly from the word-acceptor that the group generators have infinite order, which of course implies that the group itself is infinite.

math.GR↗

arXiv1995

The Warwick Automatic Groups Software

This paper provides a description of the algorithms employed by the Warwick AUTOMATA package for calculating the finite state automata associated with a short-lex automatic group. The aim is to provide an overview of the whole process, rather than concentrating on technical details, which have been already been published elsewhere. A number of related programs are also described.

math.GR↗

arXiv1994

Recognizing badly presented Z-modules

Finitely generated Z-modules have canonical decompositions. When such modules are given in a finitely presented form there is a classical algorithm for computing a canonical decomposition. This is the algorithm for computing the Smith normal form of an integer matrix. We discuss algorithms for Smith normal form computation, and present practical algorithms which give excellent performance for modules arising from badly presented abelian groups. We investigate such issues as congruential techniques, sparsity considerations, pivoting strategies for Gauss-Jordan elimination, lattice basis reduction and computational complexity. Our results, which are primarily empirical, show dramatically improved performance on previous methods.

math.GR↗