In the tradition of “Polymath projects“, the problem posed in the previous two blog posts has now been solved, thanks to the cumulative effect of many small contributions by many participants (including, but not limited to, Sean Eberhard, Tobias Fritz, Siddharta Gadgil, Tobias Hartnick, Chris Jerdonek, Apoorva Khare, Antonio Machiavelo, Pace Nielsen, Andy Putman, Will Sawin, Alexander Shamov, Lior Silberman, and David Speyer). In this post I’ll write down a streamlined resolution, eliding a number of important but ultimately removable partial steps and insights made by the above contributors en route to the solution.

Theorem 1 Let {G = (G,\cdot)} be a group. Suppose one has a “seminorm” function {\| \|: G \rightarrow [0,+\infty)} which obeys the triangle inequality

\displaystyle \|xy \| \leq \|x\| + \|y\|

for all {x,y \in G}, with equality whenever {x=y}. Then the seminorm factors through the abelianisation map {G \mapsto G/[G,G]}.

Proof: By the triangle inequality, it suffices to show that {\| [x,y]\| = 0} for all {x,y \in G}, where {[x,y] := xyx^{-1}y^{-1}} is the commutator.

We first establish some basic facts. Firstly, by hypothesis we have {\|x^2\| = 2 \|x\|}, and hence {\|x^n \| = n \|x\|} whenever {n} is a power of two. On the other hand, by the triangle inequality we have {\|x^n \| \leq n\|x\|} for all positive {n}, and hence by the triangle inequality again we also have the matching lower bound, thus

\displaystyle \|x^n \| = n \|x\|

for all {n > 0}. The claim is also true for {n=0} (apply the preceding bound with {x=1} and {n=2}). By replacing {\|x\|} with {\max(\|x\|, \|x^{-1}\|)} if necessary we may now also assume without loss of generality that {\|x^{-1} \| = \|x\|}, thus

\displaystyle \|x^n \| = |n| \|x\| \ \ \ \ \ (1)

 

for all integers {n}.

Next, for any {x,y \in G}, and any natural number {n}, we have

\displaystyle \|yxy^{-1} \| = \frac{1}{n} \| (yxy^{-1})^n \|

\displaystyle = \frac{1}{n} \| y x^n y^{-1} \|

\displaystyle \leq \frac{1}{n} ( \|y\| + n \|x\| + \|y\|^{-1} )

so on taking limits as {n \rightarrow \infty} we have {\|yxy^{-1} \| \leq \|x\|}. Replacing {x,y} by {yxy^{-1},y^{-1}} gives the matching lower bound, thus we have the conjugation invariance

\displaystyle \|yxy^{-1} \| = \|x\|. \ \ \ \ \ (2)

 

Next, we observe that if {x,y,z,w} are such that {x} is conjugate to both {wy} and {zw^{-1}}, then one has the inequality

\displaystyle \|x\| \leq \frac{1}{2} ( \|y \| + \| z \| ). \ \ \ \ \ (3)

 

Indeed, if we write {x = swys^{-1} = t zw^{-1} t^{-1}} for some {s,t \in G}, then for any natural number {n} one has

\displaystyle \|x\| = \frac{1}{2n} \| x^n x^n \|

\displaystyle = \frac{1}{2n} \| swy \dots wy s^{-1}t zw^{-1} \dots zw^{-1} t^{-1} \|

where the {wy} and {zw^{-1}} terms each appear {n} times. From (2) we see that conjugation by {w} does not affect the norm. Using this and the triangle inequality several times, we conclude that

\displaystyle \|x\| \leq \frac{1}{2n} ( \|s\| + n \|y\| + \| s^{-1} t\| + n \|z\| + \|t^{-1} \| ),

and the claim (3) follows by sending {n \rightarrow \infty}.

The following special case of (3) will be of particular interest. Let {x,y \in G}, and for any integers {m,k}, define the quantity

\displaystyle f(m,k) := \| x^m [x,y]^k \|.

Observe that {x^m [x,y]^k} is conjugate to both {x (x^{m-1} [x,y]^k)} and to {(y^{-1} x^m [x,y]^{k-1} xy) x^{-1}}, hence by (3) one has

\displaystyle \| x^m [x,y]^k \| \leq \frac{1}{2} ( \| x^{m-1} [x,y]^k \| + \| y^{-1} x^{m} [x,y]^{k-1} xy \|)

which by (2) leads to the recursive inequality

\displaystyle f(m,k) \leq \frac{1}{2} (f(m-1,k) + f(m+1,k-1)).

We can write this in probabilistic notation as

\displaystyle f(m,k) \leq {\bf E} f( (m,k) + X )

where {X} is a random vector that takes the values {(-1,0)} and {(1,-1)} with probability {1/2} each. Iterating this, we conclude in particular that for any large natural number {n}, one has

\displaystyle f(0,n) \leq {\bf E} f( Z )

where {Z := (0,n) + X_1 + \dots + X_{2n}} and {X_1,\dots,X_{2n}} are iid copies of {X}. We can write {Z = (1,-1/2) (Y_1 + \dots + Y_{2n})} where Y_1,\dots,Y_{2n} = \pm 1 are iid signs.  By the triangle inequality, we thus have

\displaystyle f( Z ) \leq |Y_1+\dots+Y_{2n}| (\|x\| + \frac{1}{2} \| [x,y] \|),

noting that Y_1+\dots+Y_{2n} is an even integer.  On the other hand, Y_1+\dots+Y_{2n} has mean zero and variance 2n, hence by Cauchy-Schwarz

\displaystyle f(0,n) \leq \sqrt{2n}( \|x\| + \frac{1}{2} \| [x,y] \|).

But by (1), the left-hand side is equal to {n \| [x,y]\|}. Dividing by {n} and then sending {n \rightarrow \infty}, we obtain the claim. \Box

The above theorem reduces such seminorms to abelian groups. It is easy to see from (1) that any torsion element of such groups has zero seminorm, so we can in fact restrict to torsion-free groups, which we now write using additive notation {G = (G,+)}, thus for instance {\| nx \| = |n| \|x\|} for {n \in {\bf Z}}. We think of {G} as a {{\bf Z}}-module. One can then extend the seminorm to the associated {{\bf Q}}-vector space {G \otimes_{\bf Z} {\bf Q}} by the formula {\|\frac{a}{b} x\| := \frac{a}{b} \|x\|}, and then to the associated {{\bf R}}-vector space {G \otimes_{\bf Z} {\bf R}} by continuity, at which point it becomes a genuine seminorm (provided we have ensured the symmetry condition {\|x\| = \|x^{-1}\|}). Conversely, any seminorm on {G \otimes_{\bf Z} {\bf R}} induces a seminorm on {G}. (These arguments also appear in this paper of Khare and Rajaratnam.)