I'm looking for an example (if it exists) of two non isomorphic groups with the same profinite completions.
Every reference is well accepted. Thank you.
I'm looking for an example (if it exists) of two non isomorphic groups with the same profinite completions.
Every reference is well accepted. Thank you.
For a very simple example, consider $\mathbb{Q}$ and the trivial group. There are no nontrivial homomorphisms from $\mathbb{Q}$ to any finite group, so the profinite completion of $\mathbb{Q}$ is trivial.
For a less trivial example, take $\mathbb{Z}$ and its profinite completion $\hat{\mathbb{Z}}$. The group $\hat{\mathbb{Z}}$ is its own profinite completion (since any homomorphism to a finite group must factor through the quotient $\hat{\mathbb{Z}}/n\hat{\mathbb{Z}}\cong \mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z}$ for some $n$), so $\mathbb{Z}$ and $\hat{\mathbb{Z}}$ have the same profinite completion, but they are not isomorphic.