Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Let An be the automorphism group of the free group Fn of rank n, and let Kn be the normal subgroup of An consisting of those elements which induce the identity automorphism in the commutator quotient group . The group Kn has been called the group of IA automorphisms of Fn (see e.g. [1]). It was shown by Magnus [7] using earlier work of Nielsen [11] that Kn is finitely generated, with generating set the automorphisms
and
where x1, x2, …, xn, is a chosen basis of Fn.