Asymptotic Burnside laws

Abstract

We construct novel examples of finitely generated groups that exhibit seemingly-contradicting probabilistic behaviors with respect to Burnside laws. We construct a finitely generated group that satisfies a Burnside law, namely a law of the form $x^n=1$, with limit probability 1 with respect to uniform measures on balls in its Cayley graph and under every lazy non-degenerate random walk, while containing a free subgroup. We show that the limit probability of satisfying a Burnside law is highly sensitive to the choice of generating set, by providing a group for which this probability is $0$ for one generating set and $1$ for another. Furthermore, we construct groups that satisfy Burnside laws of two co-prime exponents with probability 1. Finally, we present a finitely generated group for which every real number in the interval $[0,1]$ appears as a partial limit of the probability sequence of Burnside law satisfaction, both for uniform measures on Cayley balls and for random walks. Our results resolve several open questions posed by Amir, Blachar, Gerasimova, and Kozma. The techniques employed in this work draw upon geometric analysis of relations in groups, information-theoretic coding theory on groups, and combinatorial and probabilistic methods.

Locations

• arXiv (Cornell University) - View - PDF