Texas A&M University, Department of
Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 2nd of April 2008, 3:00-3:50
Groups and Dynamics Seminar
Computing solutions to systems of equations over free and hyperbolic groups
Henry Wilton of University of Texas
Limit groups are the group-theoretic analogue of irreducible varieties.
I will describe an algorithm to enumerate limit groups, and explain
how it follows that one can compute a description of the set of
solutions to a system of equations over a free group. Another
consequence is an algorithm to determine if a given presentation,
together with a solution to the word problem, represents a free group.
If there is time I will describe some progress in the attempt to extend
this work to hyperbolic groups. This is joint work with Daniel Groves.