arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M. Sapir.
We construct the first examples of an algorithmically complex finitely presented residually finite groups and first examples of finitely presented residually finite groups with arbitrarily large (recursive) Dehn function and depth function. The groups are solvable of class 3. We also prove that the universal theory of finite solvable of class 3 groups is undecidable.
The main goal of this paper is a detailed study of asymptotic cones of the mapping class groups. In particular, we prove that every asymptotic cone of a mapping class group has a bi-Lipschitz equivariant embedding into a product of real trees, sending limits of hierarchy paths onto geodesics, and with image a median subspace. One of the applications is that a group with Kazhdan's property (T) can have only finitely many pairwise non-conjugate homomorphisms into a mapping class group. We also give a new proof of the rank conjecture of Brock and Farb (previously proved by Behrstock and Minsky, and independently by Hamenstaedt).
We prove that the word problem of a finitely generated group $G$ is in NP (solvable in polynomial time by a non-deterministic Turing machine) if and only if this group is a subgroup of a finitely presented group $H$ with polynomial isoperimetric function. The embedding can be chosen in such a way that $G$ has bounded distortion in $H$.
We survey recent results about asymptotic functions of groups, obtained by the authors in collaboration with J.-C.Birget, V. Guba and E. Rips. We also discuss methods used in the proofs of these results.