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Polycyclic group

In mathematics, a polycyclic group is a solvable group that satisfies the maximal condition on subgroups (that is, every subgroup is finitely generated). Polycyclic groups are finitely presented, which makes them interesting from a computational point of view. Equivalently, a group G is polycyclic if and only if it admits a subnormal series with cyclic factors, that is a finite set of subgroups, let's say G0, ..., Gn such that Gn coincides with G G0 is the trivial subgroup Gi is a normal subgroup of Gi+1 (for every i between 0 and n - 1) and the quotient group Gi+1 / Gi is a cyclic group (for every i between 0 and n - 1) A metacyclic group is a polycyclic group with n ≤ 2, or in other words an extension of a cyclic group by a cyclic group. Examples of polycyclic groups include finitely generated abelian groups, finitely generated nilpotent groups, and finite solvable groups. Anatoly Maltsev proved that solvable subgroups of the integer general linear group are polycyclic; and later Louis Auslander (1967) and Swan proved the converse, that any polycyclic group is up to isomorphism a group of integer matrices. The holomorph of a polycyclic group is also such a group of integer matrices. A polycyclic group G is said to be strongly polycyclic if each quotient Gi+1 / Gi is infinite. Any subgroup of a strongly polycyclic group is strongly polycyclic. A virtually polycyclic group is a group that has a polycyclic subgroup of finite index, an example of a virtual property. Such a group necessarily has a normal polycyclic subgroup of finite index, and therefore such groups are also called polycyclic-by-finite groups. Although polycyclic-by-finite groups need not be solvable, they still have many of the finiteness properties of polycyclic groups; for example, they satisfy the maximal condition, and they are finitely presented and residually finite. In the textbook and some papers, an M-group refers to what is now called a polycyclic-by-finite group, which by Hirsch's theorem can also be expressed as a group which has a finite length subnormal series with each factor a finite group or an infinite cyclic group.

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Supersolvable group
In mathematics, a group is supersolvable (or supersoluble) if it has an invariant normal series where all the factors are cyclic groups. Supersolvability is stronger than the notion of solvability. Let G be a group. G is supersolvable if there exists a normal series such that each quotient group is cyclic and each is normal in . By contrast, for a solvable group the definition requires each quotient to be abelian. In another direction, a polycyclic group must have a subnormal series with each quotient cyclic, but there is no requirement that each be normal in .
Finitely generated group
In algebra, a finitely generated group is a group G that has some finite generating set S so that every element of G can be written as the combination (under the group operation) of finitely many elements of S and of inverses of such elements. By definition, every finite group is finitely generated, since S can be taken to be G itself. Every infinite finitely generated group must be countable but countable groups need not be finitely generated. The additive group of rational numbers Q is an example of a countable group that is not finitely generated.
Presentation of a group
In mathematics, a presentation is one method of specifying a group. A presentation of a group G comprises a set S of generators—so that every element of the group can be written as a product of powers of some of these generators—and a set R of relations among those generators. We then say G has presentation Informally, G has the above presentation if it is the "freest group" generated by S subject only to the relations R. Formally, the group G is said to have the above presentation if it is isomorphic to the quotient of a free group on S by the normal subgroup generated by the relations R.
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