Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/iii/paper-149/4/a/solution

Put and consider the powers
where is maximal subject to . For sufficiently large in terms of , one has . Since the successive growth ratios telescope,
Thus one ratio is at most . For the corresponding ,
Set . Then , so the small-tripling argument from Question 1(b) makes
an -approximate group. Apply the Breuillard-Green-Tao structure theorem for approximate groups. It gives subgroups
such that
is a nilpotent group of class , and is covered by left cosets of .
It remains to pass from a covering to an index bound. The ball meets only vertices of the Schreier graph of . If had more vertices, a simple path from would give more than that many distinct cosets within distance . Since and is sufficiently large, this is impossible. Therefore

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