commutators and squares in free nilpotent groups来自自由和广场幂零群.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences Volume 2009, Article ID 264150, 10 pages doi:10.1155/2009/264150 Research Article Commutators and Squares in Free Nilpotent Groups Mehri Akhavan-Malayeri Department of Mathematics, Alzahra University, Vank, Tehranm 19834, Iran Correspondence should be addressed to Mehri Akhavan-Malayeri, makhavanm@ Received 2 August 2009; Revised 24 November 2009; Accepted 1 December 2009 Recommended by Howard Bell In a free group no nontrivial commutator is a square. And in the free group F F x , x freely 2 1 2 generated by x , x the commutator x , x is never the product of two squares in F , although it 1 2 1 2 2 is always the product of three squares. Let F x , x be a free nilpotent group of rank 2 and 2,3 1 2 class 3 freely generated by x , x . We prove that in F x , x , it is possible to write certain 1 2 2,3 1 2 commutators as a square. We denote by Sqγ the minimal number of squares which is required to write γ as a product of squares in group G. And we define SqG sup {Sqγ ; γ ∈ G }. We discuss the question of when the square length of a given commutator of F2,3 is equal to 1 or 2 or 3. The precise formulas for expressing any commutator of F2,3 as the minimal number of squares are given. Finally as an application of these results we prove that SqF2,3 3. Copyright q 2009 Mehri Akhavan-Malayeri.