Rational growth in the Heisenberg group

Abstract

A group presentation is said to have rational growth if the generating series associated to its growth function represents a rational function. A long-standing open question asks whether the Heisenberg group has rational growth for all finite generating sets, and we settle this question affirmatively. We also establish almost-convexity for all finite generating sets. Previously, both of these properties were known to hold for hyperbolic groups and virtually abelian groups, and there were no further examples in either case. Our main method is a close description of the relationship between word metrics and associated Carnot-Caratheodory Finsler metrics on the ambient Lie group. We provide (non-regular) languages in any word metric that suffice to represent all group elements.