On Gelman’s Subgroup Counting Theorem

Eric Freden1, Michael Grady2
1Department of Mathematics, Southern Utah University, Cedar City UT
2Department Computer Science & Informations Systems, Southern Utah Univer- Sity, Cedar City UT

Abstract

In a recent paper, E. Gelman provided an exact formula for the number of subgroups of a given index for the Baumslag-Solitar groups \( \text{BS}(p, q) \) when \( p \) and \( q \) are coprime. We use Gelman’s proof as the basis for an algorithm that computes a maximal set of inequivalent permutation representations of \( \text{BS}(p, q) \) with degree \( n \). The computational complexity of this algorithm is linear in both space and time with respect to the index. We compare the performance of this algorithm with the Todd-Coxeter procedure, which generally lacks a polynomial bound on the number of cosets used during the enumeration process.