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Jambor--Liebeck--O'Brien showed that there exist non-proper-power word maps which are not surjective on $\mathrm{PSL}_{2}(\mathbb{F}_{q})$ for infinitely many $q$. This provided the first counterexamples to a conjecture of Shalev which stated that if a two-variable word is not a proper power of a non-trivial word, then the corresponding word map is surjective on $\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{F}_{q})$ for all sufficiently large $q$. Motivated by their work, we construct new examples of these types of non-surjective word maps. As an application, we obtain non-surjective word maps on the absolute Galois group of $\mathbb Q$.

The notion of minimal complements was introduced by Nathanson in 2011. Since then, the existence or the inexistence of minimal complements of sets have been extensively studied. Recently, the study of inverse problems, i.e., which sets can or cannot occur as minimal complements has gained traction. For example, the works of Kwon, Alon--Kravitz--Larson, Burcroff--Luntzlara and also that of the authors, shed light on some of the questions in this direction. These works have focussed mainly on the group of integers, or on abelian groups. In this work, our motivation is two-fold: (i) to show some new results on the inverse problem, (ii) to concentrate on the inverse problem in not necessarily abelian groups. As a by-product, we obtain new results on non-minimal complements in the group of integers and more generally, in any finitely generated abelian group of positive rank and in any free abelian group of positive rank. Moreover, we show the existence of uncountably many subsets in such groups which are "robust" non-minimal complements.

Let $G$ be a finite group and $S$ be a symmetric generating set of $G$ with $|S| = d$. We show that if the undirected Cayley sum graph $C_{\Sigma}(G,S)$ is an expander graph and is non-bipartite, then the spectrum of its normalised adjacency operator is bounded away from $-1$. We also establish an explicit lower bound for the spectrum of these graphs, namely, the non-trivial eigenvalues of the normalised adjacency operator lies in the interval $\left(-1+\frac{h(G)^{4}}{\eta}, 1-\frac{h(G)^{2}}{2d^{2}}\right]$, where $h(G)$ denotes the (vertex) Cheeger constant of the $d$-regular graph $C_{\Sigma}(G,S)$ and $\eta = 2^{9}d^{8}$. Further, we improve upon a recently obtained bound on the non-trivial spectrum of the normalised adjacency operator of the non-bipartite Cayley graph $C(G,S)$., Comment: Grant number added

A pair of non-empty subsets $(W,W')$ in an abelian group $G$ is an additive complement pair if $W+W'=G$. $W'$ is said to be minimal to $W$ if $W+(W'\setminus \{w'\}) \neq G, \forall \,w'\in W'$. In general, given an arbitrary subset in a group, the existence of minimal complement(s) depends on its structure. The dual problem asks that given such a set, if it is a minimal complement to some subset. Additive complements have been studied in the context of representations of integers since the time of Erd\H{o}s, Hanani, Lorentz and others. The notion of minimal complements is due to Nathanson. We study tightness property of complement pairs $(W,W')$ such that both $W$ and $W'$ are minimal to each other. These are termed co-minimal pairs and we show that any non-empty finite set in an arbitrary free abelian group belongs to some co-minimal pair. We also study infinite sets forming co-minimal pairs. At the other extreme, motivated by unbounded arithmetic progressions in the integers, we look at sets which can never be a part of any minimal pair. This leads to a discussion on co-minimality, subgroups, approximate subgroups and asymptotic approximate subgroups of $G$.

Let $G$ be any group and $A$ be an arbitrary subset of $G$ (not necessarily symmetric and not necessarily containing the identity). The $h$-fold product set of $A$ is defined as $$A^{h} :=\lbrace a_{1}.a_{2}...a_{h} : a_{1},\ldots,a_n \in A \rbrace.$$ Nathanson considered the concept of an asymptotic approximate group. Let $r,l \in \mathbb{N}$. The set $A$ is said to be an $(r,l)$ approximate group in $G$ if there exists a subset $X$ in $G$ such that $|X|\leqslant l$ and $A^{r}\subseteq XA$. The set $A$ is an asymptotic $(r,l)$-approximate group if the product set $A^{h}$ is an $(r,l)$-approximate group for all sufficiently large $h$. Recently, Nathanson showed that every finite subset $A$ of an abelian group is an asymptotic $(r,l')$ approximate group (with the constant $l'$ explicitly depending on $r$ and $A$). We generalise the result and show that, in an arbitrary abelian group $G$, the union of $k$ (unbounded) generalised arithmetic progressions is an asymptotic $(r,(4rk)^k)$-approximate group.

Given two non-empty subsets $W,W'\subseteq G$ in an arbitrary abelian group $G$, $W'$ is said to be an additive complement to $W$ if $W + W'=G$ and it is minimal if no proper subset of $W'$ is a complement to $W$. The notion was introduced by Nathanson and previous work by him, Chen--Yang, Kiss--S\`andor--Yang etc. focussed on $G =\mathbb{Z}$. In the higher rank case, recent work by the authors treated a class of subsets, namely the eventually periodic sets. However, for infinite subsets, not of the above type, the question of existence or inexistence of minimal complements is open. In this article, we study subsets which are not eventually periodic. We introduce the notion of "spiked subsets" and give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of minimal complements for them. This provides a partial answer to a problem of Nathanson., Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures

Let $W,W'\subseteq G$ be nonempty subsets in an arbitrary group $G$. The set $W'$ is said to be a complement to $W$ if $WW'=G$ and it is minimal if no proper subset of $W'$ is a complement to $W$. We show that, if $W$ is finite then every complement of $W$ has a minimal complement, answering a problem of Nathanson. This also shows the existence of minimal $r$-nets for every $r\geqslant 0$ in finitely generated groups. Further, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of minimal complements of a certain class of infinite subsets in finitely generated abelian groups, partially answering another problem of Nathanson. Finally, we provide infinitely many examples of infinite subsets of abelian groups of arbitrary finite rank admitting minimal complements., Comment: Minor corrections

We provide an explicit construction of finite 4-regular graphs $(\Gamma_k)_{k\in \mathbb N}$ with ${girth \Gamma_k\to\infty}$ as $k\to\infty$ and $\frac{diam \Gamma_k}{girth \Gamma_k}\leqslant D$ for some $D>0$ and all $k\in\mathbb{N}$. For each fixed dimension $n\geqslant 2,$ we find a pair of matrices in $SL_{n}(\mathbb{Z})$ such that (i) they generate a free subgroup, (ii)~their reductions $\bmod\, p$ generate $SL_{n}(\mathbb{F}_{p})$ for all sufficiently large primes $p$, (iii) the corresponding Cayley graphs of $SL_{n}(\mathbb{F}_{p})$ have girth at least $c_n\log p$ for some $c_n>0$. Relying on growth results (with no use of expansion properties of the involved graphs), we observe that the diameter of those Cayley graphs is at most $O(\log p)$. This gives infinite sequences of finite $4$-regular Cayley graphs of $SL_n(\mathbb F_p)$ as $p\to\infty$ with large girth and bounded diameter-by-girth ratio. These are the first explicit examples in all dimensions $n\geqslant 2$ (all prior examples were in $n=2$). Moreover, they happen to be expanders. Together with Margulis' and Lubotzky-Phillips-Sarnak's classical constructions, these new graphs are the only known explicit logarithmic girth Cayley graph expanders., Comment: Title and content updated to reflect published version. Previous title: "Large girth graphs with bounded diameter-by-girth ratio"

Let $G$ be a finite group. It was remarked by Breuillard-Green-Guralnick-Tao that if the Cayley graph $C(G,S)$ is an expander graph and is non-bipartite then the spectrum of the adjacency operator $T$ is bounded away from $-1$. In this article we are interested in explicit bounds for the spectrum of these graphs. Specifically, we show that the non-trivial spectrum of the adjacency operator lies in the interval $\left[-1+\frac{h(\mathbb{G})^{4}}{\gamma}, 1-\frac{h(\mathbb{G})^{2}}{2d^{2}}\right]$, where $h(\mathbb{G})$ denotes the (vertex) Cheeger constant of the $d$ regular graph $C(G,S)$ with respect to a symmetric set $S$ of generators and $\gamma = 2^{9}d^{6}(d+1)^{2}$., Comment: Final version, to appear in the European Journal of Combinatorics

Fix a parameter $K\geqslant 1$. A $K$-approximate subgroup is a finite set $A$ in a group $G$ which contains the identity, is symmetric and such that $A.A$ can covered by $K$ left translates of $A$. This article deals with the generalisation of the concept of approximate groups in the case of loops which we call approximate loops and the description of $K$-approximate subloops when the ambient loop is a finitely generated commutative moufang loop. Specifically we have a Freiman type theorem where such approximate subloops are controlled by arithmetic progressions defined in the commutative moufang loops.

Given a non-abelian finite simple group $G$ of Lie type, and an arbitrary generating set $S$, it is conjectured by Laszlo Babai that its Cayley graph $\Gamma (G,S)$ will have a diameter of $(\log |G|)^{O(1)}$. However, little progress has been made when the rank of $G$ is large. In this article, we shall show that if $G$ has rank $n$, and its base field has order $q$, then the diameter of $\Gamma (G,S)$ would be $q^{O(n(\log n + \log q)^3)}$., Comment: Referee's comments incorporated