Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-building-infinite-groups-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2011/2/a/solution

Let be the least length of a word in representing , and write . Polynomial growth of a group of degree at most means that, for some constant ,
In particular these balls are finite. For the usual convention is finite; finiteness of would force that in any case.
For a finite subset , set . Replacing each letter of a -word by an -word gives
Thus . This proves the same degree bound for . If is empty the subgroup is trivial and the assertion is immediate.

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