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Spring Topology and Dynamics Conference
March 21-23, 2002
University of Texas
Austin, TX, USA

Organizers
Cameron Gordon, John Luecke, Alan Reid

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Graphs of free groups
by
Mark Feighn
Rutgers University-Newark
Coauthors: Guo-An Diao (Rutgers University-Newark)

The motivating question is: Given a graph of groups, what can be said about it? For example, is it free? Is it a non-trivial free product? Does it split over a cyclic group?

The focus will be on finite graphs of finitely generated free groups. In particular we show:

Theorem: There is an algorithm to decide whether a finite graph of finitely generated free groups is a non-trivial free product.

This generalizes results of Shenitzer and Swarup and answers a question on the Magnus problem list.

Date received: February 21, 2002

Copyright © 2002 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # caik-46.