Why can the relators be omitted?

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$$< c^2,d^3,b^2c,ca^2,bda^3d^2,ab^3a^3b^3,b^3db^3d^2a^3 >$$

is a presentation of the group $SL(2,3)$.

According to GAP, the relators $c^2$ and $ab^3a^3b^3$ can be omitted, in other words,

$$< d^3,b^2c,ca^2,bda^3d^2,b^3db^3d^2a^3 >$$

is also a presentation of the group $SL(2,3)$.

I wanted to check this by hand :

What we know by the relators is :

  • $d^3=e$
  • $b^2c=e$
  • $ca^2=e$
  • $bda^3d^2=e$
  • $b^3db^3d^2a^3=e$

This implies :

  • $d^3=e$
  • $a^2=b^2=c^{-1}$
  • $bd=d(a^3)^{-1}$
  • $b^3db^3=(a^3)^{-1}d$

Suppose, we could show $a^4=b^4=c^2=e$

Then, we would get $bd=da$ and $b^3db^3=ad$ implying $b^3d=adb$

Then we could conclude $ba=bd^2bd=bdabdd=bbdbdd=b^2abdd^2=b^2ab=a^3b$

because of $a=d^2bd$ and $db=a^3b^3d=cacbd=accbd=abd$ , the later equality follows from $ca=a^2a=a^3=aa^2=ac$. So finally we could derive $ab^3a^3b^3=ab^3(ba)^{-1}=ab^3(ab^3)^{-1}=e$.

But how can I derive $c^2=e$ or, equivalent , $a^4=b^4=e$ ?

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I'm not sure whether there is a sufficiently nice solution to make a hand calculation feasible. Using a calculation in GAP (taking sufficiently many conjugates of relators to have subgroup generators for the kernel) I tried to express (e.g.) $c^2$ as a product of conjugates of relators, and got an expression that is a product of 800 factors. (If you really want this monster, send me a private email and I'll send it to you.) Presumably you could check this by hand.

While there is no guarantee that this is not missing a shorter expression, I wouldn't be surprised either if the expression you look for will have length of 50 or so (and thus still be infeasible to find by hand calculation).

(Even when simplifying (the generators a and c are redundant) I still get length 34.)