Bounding the residual finiteness of free groups

Martin Kassabov, Francesco Matucci

Published 2009-12-11, updated 2011-05-18Version 2

We find a lower bound to the size of finite groups detecting a given word in the free group, more precisely we construct a word w_n of length n in non-abelian free groups with the property that w_n is the identity on all finite quotients of size ~ n^{2/3} or less. This improves on a previous result of Bou-Rabee and McReynolds quantifying the lower bound of the residual finiteness of free groups.