free group

Noun

free group (plural free groups)

1. A group that has a presentation without relators; equivalently, a free product of some number of copies of ℤ.
   • Given a set S of "free generators" of a free group, let S⁻¹ be the set of inverses of the generators, which are in one-to-one correspondence with the generators (the two sets are disjoint), then let (S∪S⁻¹)^* be the Kleene closure of the union of those two sets. For any string w in the Kleene...
   • A subset A of a free group F is called "separable" when there is a non-trivial free factorization F = F₁ * F₂ such that each element of A is conjugate to an element of F₁ or of F₂.1999, John R. Stallings, “Whitehead graphs on handlebodies”, in John Cossey, Charles F. Miller, Michael Shapiro, Walter D. Neumann, editors, Geometric Group Theory Down Under: Proceedings of a...