Word problems for finite nilpotent groups

Abstract

AbstractLet w be a word in k variables. For a finite nilpotent group G, a conjecture of Amit states that $$N_w(1)\ge |G|^{k-1}$$ N w ( 1 ) ≥ | G | k - 1 , where for $$g\in G$$ g ∈ G , the quantity $$N_w(g)$$ N w ( g ) is the number of k-tuples $$(g_1,\ldots ,g_k)\in G^{(k)}$$ ( g 1 , … , g k ) ∈ G ( k ) such that $$w(g_1,\ldots ,g_k)={g}$$ w ( g 1 , … , g k ) = g . Currently, this conjecture is known to be true for groups of nilpotency class 2. Here we consider a generalized version of Amit’s conjecture, which states that $$N_w(g)\ge |G|^{k-1}$$ N w ( g ) ≥ | G | k - 1 for g a w-value in G, and prove that $$N_w(g)\ge |G|^{k-2}$$ N w ( g ) ≥ | G | k - 2 for finite groups G of odd order and nilpotency class 2. If w is a word in two variables, we further show that the generalized Amit conjecture holds for finite groups G of nilpotency class 2. In addition, we use character theory techniques to confirm the generalized Amit conjecture for finite p-groups (p a prime) with two distinct irreducible character degrees and a particular family of words. Finally, we discuss the related group properties of being rational and chiral, and show that every finite group of nilpotency class 2 is rational.