journal of Groups, Complexity, Cryptology Volume 12, Issue 1, 2020, pp. 1:1–1:24 Submitted Sept. 11, 2019 https://gcc.episciences.org/ Published Feb. 29, 2020 ON THE LATTICE OF SUBGROUPS OF A FREE GROUP: COMPLEMENTS AND RANK JORDI DELGADO AND PEDRO V. SILVA Centro de Matemática, Universidade do Porto, Portugal e-mail address:
[email protected] Centro de Matemática, Universidade do Porto, Portugal e-mail address:
[email protected] Abstract. A ∨-complement of a subgroup H 6 Fn is a subgroup K 6 Fn such that H ∨ K = Fn. If we also ask K to have trivial intersection with H, then we say that K is a ⊕-complement of H. The minimum possible rank of a ∨-complement (resp., ⊕-complement) of H is called the ∨-corank (resp., ⊕-corank) of H. We use Stallings automata to study these notions and the relations between them. In particular, we characterize when complements exist, compute the ∨-corank, and provide language-theoretical descriptions of the sets of cyclic complements. Finally, we prove that the two notions of corank coincide on subgroups that admit cyclic complements of both kinds. 1. Introduction Subgroups of free groups are complicated. Of course not the structure of the subgroups themselves (which are always free, a classic result by Nielsen and Schreier) but the relations between them, or more precisely, the lattice they constitute. A first hint in this direction is the fact that (free) subgroups of any countable rank appear as subgroups of the free group of rank 2 (and hence of any of its noncyclic subgroups) giving rise to a self-similar structure.