Peak reduction and finite presentations for automorphism groups of right-angled Artin groups

Abstract

We generalize the peak-reduction algorithm (Whitehead's theorem) for free groups to a theorem about a general right-angled Artin group A_Gamma. As an application, we find a finite presentation for the automorphism group Aut A_Gamma that generalizes McCool's presentation for the automorphism group of a finite rank free group. We also give consider a stronger generalization of peak-reduction, giving a counterexample and proving a special case.