Let Gamma be a connected, locally finite graph of finite tree width and G be a group acting on it with finitely many orbits and finite node stabilizers. We provide an elementary and direct construction of a tree T on which G acts with finitely many orbits and finite vertex stabilizers. Moreover, the tree is defined directly in terms of the structure tree of optimally nested cuts of Gamma.
Once the tree is constructed, standard Bass-Serre theory yields that G is virtually free. This approach simplifies the existing proofs for the fundamental result of Muller and Schupp that characterizes context-free groups as f.g. virtually free groups. Our construction avoids the explicit use of Stallings' structure theorem and it is self-contained. We also give a simplified proof for an important consequence of the structure tree theory by Dicks and Dunwoody which has been stated by Thomassen and Woess. It says that a f.g. group is accessible if and only if its Cayley graph is accessible.
This is the second part of a series of three articles which introduce laminations for free groups (see math.GR/0609416 for the first part). Several definition of the dual lamination of a very small action of a free group on an $\R$-tree are given and proved to be equivalent.
This is the third of a series of three articles where we introduce laminations for the free-groups. We explore here the link between currents and laminations and prove that the situation is more complicated than in the surface case of real tree dual to a measured geodesic lamination.
I. M. Chiswell has asked whether every group that admits a free isometric action (without inversions) on a $Λ$-tree is orderable. We give an example of a multiple HNN extension $Γ$ which acts freely on a $\mathbb{Z}^2$-tree but which has non-trivial generalised torsion elements. The existence of such elements implies that $Γ$ is not orderable.
We construct cocompact lattices in a product of trees which are not virtually torsion-free. This gives the first examples of hierarchically hyperbolic groups which are not virtually torsion-free
Groups acting freely on Z^n-trees (Z^n-free groups) play a key role in the study of non-archimedean group actions. Following Stallings' ideas, we develop graph-theoretic techniques to investigate subgroup structure of Z^n-free groups. As an immediate application of the presented method, we give an effective solution to the Uniform Membership Problem and the Power Problem in Z^n-free groups.
We show that if a group $G$ acting faithfully on a rooted tree $T$ has a free subgroup, then either there exists a point $w$ of the boundary $\partial T$ and a free subgroup of $G$ with trivial stabilizer of $w$, or there exists $w\in\partial T$ and a free subgroup of $G$ fixing $w$ and acting faithfully on arbitrarily small neighborhoods of $w$. This can be used to prove absence of free subgroups for different known classes of groups. For instance, we prove that iterated monodromy groups of expanding coverings have no free subgroups and give another proof of a theorem by S. Sidki.
We construct total orders on the vertex set of an oriented tree. The orders are based only on up-down counts at the interior vertices and the edges along the unique geodesic from a given vertex to another. As an application, we provide a short proof (modulo Bass-Serre theory) of Vinogradov's result that the free product of left-orderable groups is left-orderable.
This is a continuation of the study, begun by Ceccherini-Silberstein and Woess, of context-free pairs of groups and the related context-free graphs in the sense of Muller and Schupp. Instead of the cones (connected components with respect to deletion of finite balls with respect to the graph metric), a more general approach to context-free graphs is proposed via tree sets consisting of cuts of the graph, and associated structure trees. The existence of tree sets with certain "good" properties is studied. With a tree set, a natural context-free grammar is associated. These investigations of the…
This paper is the first of a sequence of three papers, where the concept of an $\mathbb R$-tree dual to a measured geodesic lamination in a hyperbolic surface is generalized to arbitrary $\mathbb R$-trees provided with a (very small) action of the free group $F_N$ of finite rank $N\geq 2$ by isometries. Three different definitions are given and they are proved to be equivalent. We also describe the topology and Out$(F_N)$-action on the space of laminations.
We present an algorithm to decide whether or not a finitely generated subgroup of the isometry group of a locally finite simplicial tree is both discrete and free. The correctness of this algorithm relies on the following conjecture: every `minimal' $n$-tuple of isometries of a simplicial tree either contains an elliptic element or satisfies the hypotheses of the Ping Pong Lemma. We prove this conjecture for $n=2,3$, and show that it implies a generalisation of Ihara's Theorem.
A group is called $Λ$-free if it has a free Lyndon length function in an ordered abelian group $Λ$, which is equivalent to having a free isometric action on a $Λ$-tree. A group has a regular free length function in $Λ$ if and only if it has a free isometric action on a $Λ$-tree so that all branch points belong to the orbit of the base point. In this paper we prove that every finitely presented $Λ$-free group $G$ can be embedded into a finitely presented group with a regular free length function in $Λ$ so that the length function on $G$ is preserved by the embedding. Next, we prove that every f…
Let G be a finitely generated infinite pro-p group acting on a pro-p tree such that the restriction of the action to some open subgroup is free. Then we prove that G splits as a pro-p amalgamated product or as a pro-p HNN-extension over an edge stabilizer. Using this result we prove under certain conditions that free pro-p products with procyclic amalgamation inherit from its free factors the property of each 2-generated subgroup being free pro-p. This generalizes known pro-p results, as well as some pro-p analogs of classical results in abstract combinatorial group theory.
We study the class of groups generated by automata that act essentially freely on the boundary of a rooted tree. In the process we establish and discuss some general tools for determining if a group belongs to this class, and explore the connections of this class to the classes of just-infinite and scale-invariant groups. Our main application is a complete classification of groups generated by 3-state automata over 2-letter alphabet that are in this class.
We study the automorphism groups of free-by-cyclic groups and show these are finitely generated in the following cases: (i) when defining automorphism has linear growth and (ii) when the rank of the underlying free group has rank at most 3. The techniques we use are actions on trees, including the trees of cylinders due to Guirardel and Levitt, the relative hyperbolicity of free-by-cyclic groups (due to Gautero and Lustig, Ghosh, and Dahmani and Li) and the filtration of the automorphisms of a group preserving a tree, following Bass and Jiang, and Levitt. Our general strategy is to produce an …
We show that every countable non-abelian free group $Γ$ admits a spherically transitive action on a rooted tree $T$ such that the action of $Γ$ on the boundary of $T$ is not essentially free. This reproves a result of Bergeron and Gaboriau. The existence of such an action answers a question of Grigorchuk, Nekrashevich and Sushchanskii.
We prove that a "random" free group outer automorphism is an ageometric fully irreducible outer automorphism whose ideal Whitehead graph is a union of triangles. In particular, we show that its attracting (and repelling) tree is a nongeometric $\mathbb R$-tree all of whose branch points are trivalent
The self-similar structure of the attracting subshift of a primitive substitution is carried over to the limit set of the repelling tree in the boundary of Outer Space of the corresponding irreducible outer automorphism of a free group. Thus, this repelling tree is self-similar (in the sense of graph directed constructions). Its Hausdorff dimension is computed. This reveals the fractal nature of the attracting tree in the boundary of Outer Space of an irreducible outer automorphism of a free group.
This work is the first step towards a description of the Gromov boundary of the free factor graph of a free product, with applications to subgroup classification for outer automorphisms. We extend the theory of algebraic laminations dual to trees, as developed by Coulbois, Hilion, Lustig and Reynolds, to the context of free products; this also gives us an opportunity to give a unified account of this theory. We first show that any $\mathbb{R}$-tree with dense orbits in the boundary of the corresponding outer space can be reconstructed as a quotient of the boundary of the group by its dual lami…
Let T be a d-regular tree (d > 2) and A=Aut(T), its automorphism group. Let G be a group generated by n independent Haar-random elements of A. We show that almost surely, every nontrivial element of G has finitely many fixed points on T.
Let $Λ_0$ be an ordered abelian group. We show how an $\mathrm{ATF}(\mathbb{Z}\timesΛ_0)$ group -- that is, a group admitting a free affine action without inversions on a $\mathbb{Z}\timesΛ_0$-tree -- admits a natural graph of groups decomposition, where vertex groups inherit actions on $Λ_0$-trees. Using recent work of various authors, it follows that a finitely generated group admitting a free affine action on a $\mathbb{Z}^n$-tree where no line has its orientation reversed is relatively hyperbolic with nilpotent parabolics, is locally quasiconvex, and has solvable word, conjugacy and isomor…
We give a simple proof of the finite presentation of Sela's limit groups by using free actions on R^n-trees. We first prove that Sela's limit groups do have a free action on an R^n-tree. We then prove that a finitely generated group having a free action on an R^n-tree can be obtained from free abelian groups and surface groups by a finite sequence of free products and amalgamations over cyclic groups. As a corollary, such a group is finitely presented, has a finite classifying space, its abelian subgroups are finitely generated and contains only finitely many conjugacy classes of non-cyclic ma…
In this paper we study the action of the fundamental group of a finite metric graph on its universal covering tree. We assume the graph is finite, connected and the degree of each vertex is at least three. Further, we assume an irrationality condition on the edge lengths. We obtain an asymptotic for the number of elements in a fixed conjugacy class for which the associated displacement of a given base vertex in the universal covering tree is at most $T$. Under a mild extra assumption we also obtain a polynomial error term.
