Commutators, commensurators, and PSL2(Z)

Abstract

Let $H<\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{Z})$ be a finite index normal subgroup which is contained in a principal congruence subgroup, and let $\Phi(H)\neq H$ denote a term of the lower central series or the derived series of $H$. In this paper, we prove that the commensurator of $\Phi(H)$ in $\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})$ is discrete. We thus obtain a natural family of thin subgroups of $\mathrm{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})$ whose commensurators are discrete, establishing some cases of a conjecture of Shalom.