Free products and residual nilpotency

Abstract

Let G be the free product of groups Gα, [Gα] the cartesian subgroup of G and k [Gα] the intersection of [G] with the k–th term of the lower central series for G. Then the k[Gα] form a descending chain of subgroups of ] and it is shown that if the intersection of all the subgroups in this chain is trivial then G and hence each Gα, is residually nilpotent. This answers a question of S. Moran.