Thompson's group F is the group of all increasing dyadic piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the closed unit interval. We compute Sigma^m(F) and Sigma^m(F;Z), the homotopical and homological Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants of F, and we show that Sigma^m(F) = Sigma^m(F;Z). As an application, we show that, for every m, F has subgroups of type F_{m-1} which are not of type F_{m}.
The Product Conjecture for the homological Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants is proved over a field. Under certain hypotheses the Product Conjecture is shown to also hold over Z, even though D. Schuetz has recently shown that the Conjecture is false in general over Z. Our version over Z is applied in a joint paper with D. Kochloukova to derive new information about subgroups of Thompson's group F, namely that F has subgroups F_m which are not of type F_{m+1}.
Bieri, Geoghegan and Kochloukova computed the BNSR-invariants $Σ^m(F)$ of Thompson's group $F$ for all $m$. We recompute these using entirely geometric techniques, making use of the Stein--Farley CAT(0) cube complex on which $F$ acts.
We inspect the normal subgroup structure of the braided Thompson groups Vbr and Fbr. We prove that every proper normal subgroup of Vbr lies in the kernel of the natural quotient Vbr \onto V, and we exhibit some families of interesting such normal subgroups. For Fbr, we prove that for any normal subgroup N of Fbr, either N is contained in the kernel of Fbr \onto F, or else N contains [Fbr,Fbr]. We also compute the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel invariant Sigma^1(Fbr), which is a useful tool for understanding normal subgroups containing the commutator subgroup.
We develop new invariants similar to the Bieri-Strebel-Neumann-Renz invariants but in the category of Bredon modules (with respect to the class of the finite subgroups of G). We prove that for virtually soluble groups of type FP_{\infty} and finite extension of the Thompson group F the new invariants coincide with the classical ones.
We compute the higher $Σ$-invariants $Σ^m(F_{n,\infty})$ of the generalized Thompson groups $F_{n,\infty}$, for all $m,n\ge 2$. This extends the $n=2$ case done by Bieri, Geoghegan and Kochloukova, and the $m=2$ case done by Kochloukova. Our approach differs from those used in the $n=2$ and $m=2$ cases; we look at the action of $F_{n,\infty}$ on a $\textrm{CAT}(0)$ cube complex, and use Morse theory to compute all the $Σ^m(F_{n,\infty})$. We also obtain lower bounds on $Σ^m(H_n)$, for the Houghton groups $H_n$, again using actions on $\textrm{CAT}(0)$ cube complexes, and discuss evidence that …
In a recent paper Jones introduced a correspondence between elements of the Thompson group $F$ and certain graphs/links. It follows from his work that several polynomial invariants of links, such as the Kauffman bracket, can be reinterpreted as coefficients of certain unitary representations of $F$. We give a somewhat different and elementary proof of this fact for the Kauffman bracket evaluated at certain roots of unity by means of a statistical mechanics model interpretation. Moreover, by similar methods we show that, for some particular specializations of the variables, other familiar link …
In this note we prove that Thompson's group F cannot be the fundamental group of a symplectic 4-manifold with trivial canonical class by showing that its Hausmann-Weinberger invariant q(F) is strictly positive.
In previous work, joint with Bux, Fluch, Marschler and Witzel, we proved that the braided Thompson groups are of type $\textrm{F}_\infty$. The proof utilized certain contractible cube complexes, which in this paper we prove are CAT(0). We then use this fact to compute the geometric invariants $Σ^m(F_{\textrm{br}})$ of the pure braided Thompson group $F_{\textrm{br}}$. Only the first invariant $Σ^1(F_{\textrm{br}})$ was previously known. A consequence of our computation is that as soon as a subgroup of $F_{\textrm{br}}$ containing the commutator subgroup $[F_{\textrm{br}},F_{\textrm{br}}]$ is f…
We show how to construct unitary representations of the oriented Thompson group $\vec{F}$ from oriented link invariants. In particular we show that the suitably normalised HOMFLYPT polynomial defines a positive definite function of $\vec{F}$.
We describe an explicit relationship between strand diagrams and piecewise-linear functions for elements of Thompson's group F. Using this correspondence, we investigate the dynamics of elements of F, and we show that conjugacy of one-bump functions can be described by a Mather-type invariant.
Structure monoids and groups are algebraic invariants of equational varieties. We show how to construct presentations of these objects from coherent categorifications of equational varieties, generalising several results of Dehornoy. We subsequently realise the higher Thompson groups $F_{n,1}$ and the Higman-Thompson groups $G_{n,1}$ as structure groups. We go on to obtain presentations of these groups via coherent categorifications of the varieties of higher-order associativity and of higher-order associativity and commutativity, respectively. These categorifications generalise Mac Lane's pen…
Richard Thompson's group F is the group of piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the unit interval with a finite number of break points, all at dyadic rational numbers (their denominators are powers of 2) and with slopes which are powers of 2. A discrete group G is amenable if there exists a finitely-additive probability measure on G which is invariant under left translations and is defined on all subsets of G. The amenability question for F is a well known open problem. In this paper we prove that group F is not amenable.
This paper allows one to obtain a criterion for the existence of a projectively invariant measure formulated in terms of combinatorial properties of a group (amenability of some canonical quotient group). Such necessary and sufficient condition is a basis of the classification scheme for groups of homeomorphisms of the line. In particular, a nonamenability of Thompson's group $F$ follows from the obtained criterion.
One way to show that Thompson's group F is non-amenable is to exhibit an action of F on a locally compact CAT(0) space X containing no F-invariant flats and having no global fixed points in its boundary-at-infinity. We study the actions of Thompson's groups F, T, and V on the boundaries-at-infinity of proper CAT(0) cubical complexes. In particular, we show that Thompson's groups T and V act without fixing any points in the boundaries of their CAT(0) cubical complexes. This in particular gives another proof of the well-known fact that these groups are non-amenable. We obtain a partial descripti…
We construct a family of groups from suitable higher rank graphs which are analogues of the finite symmetric groups. We introduce homological invariants showing that many of our groups are, for example, not isomorphic to $nV$, when $n \geq 2$.
A machine developed by the second author produces a rich family of unitary representations of the Thompson groups F,T and V. We use it to give direct proofs of two previously known results. First, we exhibit a unitary representation of V that has an almost invariant vector but no nonzero [F,F]-invariant vectors reproving, at least for T, Reznikov's result that any intermediate subgroup between the commutator subgroup of F and V does not have Kazhdan's property (T). Second, we construct a one parameter family interpolating between the trivial and the left regular representations of V. We exhibi…
In a "naive" attempt to create algebraic quantum field theories on the circle, we obtain a family of unitary representations of Thompson's groups T and F for any subfactor. The Thompson group elements are the "local scale transformations" of the theory. In a simple case the coefficients of the representations are polynomial invariants of links. We show that all links arise and introduce new "oriented" subgroups $\overrightarrow F <F$ and $\overrightarrow T< T$ which allow us to produce all \emph{oriented} knots and links.
The pioneering work of Jones and Kauffman unveiled a fruitful relationship between statistical mechanics and knot theory. Recently, Jones introduced two subgroups $\vec{F}$ and $\vec{T}$ of the Thompson groups $F$ and $T$, respectively, together with a procedure that associates an oriented link diagram to any element of these subgroups. Moreover, several specializations of some well-known polynomial link invariants can be seen as functions of positive type on the Thompson groups or the Jones-Thompson subgroups. One important example is provided by suitable evaluations of the Jones polynomial, …
We say that $x,y\in Γ$ are in the same $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy class and write $x\sim_ϕy$ if there exists an element $γ\in Γ$ such that $y=γxϕ(γ^{-1})$. This is an equivalence relation on $Γ$ called the $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy. Let $R(ϕ)$ denote the number of $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy classes in $Γ$. If $R(ϕ)$ is infinite for all $ϕ\in Aut(Γ)$, we say that $Γ$ has the $R_\infty$-property. The purpose of this note is to show that the symmetric group $S_\infty$, the Houghton groups and the pure symmetric automorphism groups have the $R_\infty$-property. We show, also, that the Richard Thompson group $T$…
A group $G$ is said to have the property $R_\infty$ if every automorphism $ϕ\in {\rm Aut}(G)$ has an infinite number of $ϕ$-twisted conjugacy classes. Recent work of Gonçalves and Kochloukova uses the $Σ^n$ (Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz) invariants to show the $R_{\infty}$ property for a certain class of groups, including the generalized Thompson's groups $F_{n,0}$. In this paper, we make use of the $Ω^n$ invariants, analogous to $Σ^n$, to show $R_{\infty}$ for certain finitely generated groups. In particular, we give an alternate and simpler proof of the $R_{\infty}$ property for BS(1,n). Moreo…
I survey the known results about the invariant Sigma 1 of groups of PL-homeomorphisms of a compact interval and supplement them with new results about Sigma 1 of PL-homeomorphism groups of a half line or a line. The proofs are based on the Cayley-graph definition of the invariant.
We show that locally solvable subgroups of PLo(I) are countable. Then for each countable ordered set, we construct a locally solvable subgroup of Thompson's Group F. We develop machinery for understanding embeddings from solvable subgroups into solvable subgroups. Finally, we apply this machinery to show the ordered sets used in our construction are invariant under isomorphisms between the groups constructed. Therefore, we effectively distinguish the groups and provide uncountably many non-isomorphic locally solvable, hence elementary amenable, subgroups of Thompson's Group F.
The Lodha-Moore groups provide the first known examples of type F_\infty groups that are non-amenable and contain no non-abelian free subgroups. These groups are related to Thompson's group F in certain ways, for instance they contain it as a subgroup in a natural way. We exhibit decompositions of four Lodha-Moore groups, G, G_y, {_y}G and {_y}G_y, into ascending HNN extensions of isomorphic copies of each other, both in ways reminiscent to such decompositions for F and also in quite different ways. This allows us to prove two new topological results about the Lodha-Moore groups. First, we pro…
A new pair of asymptotic invariants for finitely presented groups, called intrinsic and extrinsic tame filling functions, are introduced. These filling functions are quasi-isometry invariants that strengthen the notions of intrinsic and extrinsic diameter functions for finitely presented groups. We show that the existence of a (finite-valued) tame filling function implies that the group is tame combable. Bounds on both intrinsic and extrinsic tame filling functions are discussed for stackable groups, including groups with a finite complete rewriting system, Thompson's group F, and almost conve…
By the construction of suitable non-metabelian Schur sigma-groups S of type (9,3) with log order lo(S) = 21 and nilpotency class cl(S) = 9, evidence is provided of a new class of imaginary quadratic fields K with 3-class group Cl(3,K) ~ C(9) * C(3) and punctured principalization type kappa ~ (1,4,4;4) whose 3-class field tower consists of precisely three stages. In contrast, previous examples of three-stage towers were associated with kappa in { (1,1,2;2), (1,1,2;3), (1,1,4;2), (1,2,3;1) }, lo(S) = 9 and cl(S) = 5.
In this paper, we compute the Σ^n(G) and Ω^n(G) invariants when 1 \rightarrow H \rightarrow G \rightarrow K \rightarrow 1 is a short exact sequence of finitely generated groups with K finite. We also give sufficient conditions for G to have the R_{\infty} property in terms of Ω^n(H) and Ω^n(K) when either K is finite or the sequence splits. As an application, we construct a group F \rtimes? Z_2 where F is the R. Thompson's group F and show that F \rtimes Z_2 has the R_{\infty} property while F is not characteristic.
In this note, we compute the Σ^1(G) invariant when 1 {\to} H {\to} G {\to} K {\to} 1 is a short exact sequence of finitely generated groups with K finite. As an application, we construct a group F semidirect Z_2 where F is the R. Thompson's group F and show that F semidirect Z_2 has the R-infinity property while F is not characteristic. Furthermore, we construct a finite extension G with finitely generated commutator subgroup G' but has a finite index normal subgroup H with infinitely generated H'.
The Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants $Σ^q(X,\mathbb{Z})\subset H^1(X,\mathbb{R})$ of a connected, finite-type CW-complex $X$ are the vanishing loci for Novikov-Sikorav homology in degrees up to $q$, while the characteristic varieties $\mathcal{V}^q(X) \subset H^1(X,\mathbb{C}^{\times})$ are the nonvanishing loci for homology with coefficients in rank 1 local systems in degree $q$. We show that each BNSR invariant $Σ^q(X,\mathbb{Z})$ is contained in the complement of the tropical variety associated to the algebraic variety $\mathcal{V}^{\le q}(X)$, and provide applications to several class…
We show that several classes of groups G of PL-homeomorphisms of the real line admit non-trivial homomorphisms from G to the additive group of reals that are fixed by every automorphism of G. The classes of groups enjoying the stated property include the generalisations of Thompson's group F studied by K. S. Brown, M. Stein, S. Cleary, and Bieri-Strebel but also the class of groups investigated by Bieri-Neumann-Strebel in [BNS87, Theorem 8.1]. It follows that every automorphism of a group in one of these classes has infinitely many associated twisted conjugacy classes.
We introduce and explore a natural rank for totally disconnected locally compact groups called the bounded conjugacy rank. This rank is shown to be a lattice invariant for lattices in sigma compact totally disconnected locally compact groups; that is to say, for a given sigma compact totally disconnected locally compact group, some lattice has bounded conjugacy rank n if and only if every lattice has bounded conjugacy rank n. Several examples are then presented.
Monod introduced in [14] a family of Thompson-like groups which provides natural counterexamples to the von Neumann-Day conjecture. We construct a characterization of conjugacy and invariant and use them to compute centralizers in one group of this family.
Let S be a generating set of a group G. We say that G has FINITE WIDTH relative to S if G=(S\cup S^{-1})^k for a suitable natural number k. We say that a group G is a group of FINITE C-WIDTH if G has finite width with respect to all conjugation-invariant generating sets. We give a number of examples of groups of finite C-width, and, in particular, we prove that the commutator subgroup F' of Thompson's group F is a group of finite C-width. We also study the behaviour of the class of all groups of finite C-width under some group-theoretic constructions; it is established, for instance, that this…