A finite group presentation with cyclically reduced symmetrized relators is a Dehn presentation if every nonempty freely reduced null word contains a relator segment longer than half that relator. Replacing the segment by the inverse complementary segment strictly shortens the word. Finiteness of both the alphabet and the relator set is part of this definition; merely permitting all null words as an infinite relator set would make the shortening property vacuous as a finiteness criterion.
In a finite Dehn presentation, every nonidentity finite-order element has a shortest conjugacy representative of length at most half the length of some relator. Indeed a positive power contains a Dehn segment. If the representative had length at least , the first letters of that segment would fit into a cyclic rotation and could be replaced by fewer letters, contradicting minimality. Bounded relator lengths and a finite alphabet therefore give finitely many conjugacy classes of finite-order elements. With no relators the group is free and torsion-free, so only the identity class remains.
For a Dehn presentation, repeatedly freely reduce a word or replace a relator segment longer than half its perimeter by its shorter complementary segment. Length decreases strictly. A word represents the identity exactly when the procedure reaches the empty word: any nonempty terminal null word would contradict the defining Dehn property. The finite list of relators makes each search effective.
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