No prime and no presentation of have p-deficiency at least one. Abelianizing the cyclic squaring relations makes each generator zero: for example becomes , so , and the other four relations kill . Thus the abelianization of is trivial and for every prime number . The presentation-independent p-rank of a group bound from the general solution gives
for every group presentation of . This rules out alternative presentations, not just the one displayed.
For a group presentation with finite, let be its free group. For a nontrivial relator define
The p-deficiency in the unshifted convention used here is
If the weighted sum diverges the value is ; identity relators may be omitted or assigned weight zero. Roots are taken in the free group, not in the presented quotient. Some authors subtract one from this definition; here the requested threshold is .
Two elementary bounds explain why p-deficiency detects infinitude. The p-rank of a group is
Here denotes the subgroup generated by all th powers. Each relator that is not a th power imposes at most one linear relation in this vector space, and a th-power relator imposes none. If there are relators of the first type, then
The second bound is the index-p rewriting bound for p-deficiency. Suppose has index , and its preimage in is . The Nielsen–Schreier formula gives rank . For a relator , there are two cases in the Reidemeister–Schreier theorem. If , its coset-conjugates are all th powers in , with total weight at most . If , then , since . Its cosets generate , so representatives show that the rewritten conjugates of are redundant up to conjugation in . One relator suffices, and has weight at most . In both cases the total weight is at most times the old weight. Thus the induced group presentation of satisfies
The argument applies termwise to infinitely many relators whenever the weighted sum converges.
If , the p-rank of a group bound gives a surjection to , hence a normal subgroup of index . The rewriting bound gives that subgroup another presentation of p-deficiency at least one. Iterating produces subgroups of index for every . p-deficiency at least one implies infinitude.
Now enumerate the nonidentity elements of and choose the presentation
Its p-deficiency obeys
The infinitude criterion shows that is infinite. It is generated by two elements, and every element is represented by some or is the identity; the imposed relation makes its order a power of . Thus . This is a torsion group construction by p-power relators; the presentation intentionally has infinitely many relators.
p-deficiency 2026-10-06
For a group presentation with finitely many generators and a prime number , define
This uses the unshifted convention. Identity relators have zero weight, and a divergent sum gives value . Some literature subtracts one instead; inequalities must be shifted accordingly. Taking roots in the free group matters: roots appearing only after passing to the quotient do not change the relator weight. The p-rank of a group bounds this quantity above, and the index-p rewriting bound for p-deficiency gives the infinitude criterion p-deficiency at least one implies infinitude.
If a group presentation has unshifted p-deficiency at least one, the p-rank of a group is at least one and gives a normal subgroup of index . The index-p rewriting bound for p-deficiency gives this subgroup another presentation with p-deficiency at least one. Iterating produces subgroups of index for every , so the group is infinite. This criterion applies even with infinitely many relators, provided the weighted sum in the definition converges.