Higher Labute-Serre duality and Lyndon words

Abstract

Let $S$ be a free profinite group on a finite ordered basis $X$, and let $S^{(n,p)}$, $n=1,2,\ldots,$ denote its lower $p$-central filtration. There is a natural duality between $S^{(n,p)}/S^{(n+1,p)}$ and $H^2(S/S^{(n,p)},\mathbb{F}_p)$. These $\mathbb{F}_p$-linear spaces admit natural bases indexed by Lyndon words of length $\leq n$ in the alphabet $X$. These bases are known to be unitriangularly dual. We prove that they are much closer to being fully dual, by showing that the pairing between two basis elements vanishes unless the corresponding Lyndon words are permutations of one another. We further show that the value of the pairing is essentially independent of $n$.