We compute the relative divergence and the subgroup distortion of Bestvina-Brady subgroups. We also show that for each integer $n\geq 3$, there is a free subgroup of rank $n$ of some right-angled Artin group whose inclusion is not a quasi-isometric embedding. This result answers the question of Carr about the minimum rank $n$ such that some right-angled Artin group has a free subgroup of rank $n$ whose inclusion is not a quasi-isometric embedding. It is well-known that a right-angled Artin group $A_Γ$ is the fundamental group of a graph manifold whenever the defining graph $Γ$ is a tree. We show that the Bestvina-Brady subgroup $H_Γ$ in this case is a horizontal surface subgroup.
Let $Γ$ be a finite simplicial graph such that the flag complex on $Γ$ is a $2$-dimensional triangulated disk. We show that with some assumptions, the Dehn function of the associated Bestvina--Brady group is either quadratic, cubic, or quartic. Furthermore, we can identify the Dehn function from the defining graph $Γ$.
Given a right-angled Artin group A, the associated Bestvina-Brady group is defined to be the kernel of the homomorphism A \to \mathbb{Z} that maps each generator in the standard presentation of A to a fixed generator of \mathbb{Z}. We prove that the Dehn function of an arbitrary finitely presented Bestvina-Brady group is bounded above by n^4. This is the best possible universal upper bound.
Bestvina-Brady groups arise as kernels of length homomorphisms from right-angled Artin groups G_\G to the integers. Under some connectivity assumptions on the flag complex Δ_\G, we compute several algebraic invariants of such a group N_\G, directly from the underlying graph \G. As an application, we give examples of Bestvina-Brady groups which are not isomorphic to any Artin group or arrangement group.
Previously one of us introduced a family of groups $G^M_L(S)$, parametrized by a finite flag complex $L$, a regular covering $M$ of $L$, and a set $S$ of integers. We give conjectural descriptions of when $G^M_L(S)$ is either residually finite or virtually torsion-free. In the case that $M$ is a finite cover and $S$ is periodic, there is an extension with kernel $G_L^M(S)$ and infinite cyclic quotient that is a CAT(0) cubical group. We conjecture that this group is virtually special. We relate these three conjectures to each other and prove many cases of them.
We compute: * the cohomology with group ring coefficients of Artin groups (or actually, of their associated Salvetti complexes), Bestvina-Brady groups, and graph products of groups, * the L^2-Betti numbers of Bestvina-Brady groups and of graph products of groups, * the weighted L^2-Betti numbers of graph products of Coxeter groups. In the case of arbitrary graph products there is an additional proviso: either all factors are infinite or all are finite.(However, for graph products of Coxeter groups this proviso is unnecessary.)
We study the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants and we prove the following criterion: for groups $H$ and $K$ of type $FP_n$ such that $[H,H] \subseteq K \subseteq H$ and a character $χ: K \to \mathbb{R}$ with $χ([H,H]) = 0$ we have $[χ] \in Σ^n(K, \mathbb{Z})$ if and only if $[μ] \in Σ^n(H, \mathbb{Z})$ for every character $μ: H \to \mathbb{R}$ that extends $χ$. The same holds for the homotopical invariants $Σ^n(-)$ when $K$ and $H$ are groups of type $F_n$. We use these criteria to complete the description of the $Σ$-invariants of the Bieri-Stallings groups $G_m$ and more generally to desc…
For each subcomplex of the standard CW-structure on any torus, we compute the homology of a certain infinite cyclic regular covering space. In all cases when the homology is finitely generated, we also compute the cohomology ring. For aspherical subcomplexes of the torus our computation gives the homology and cohomology of Bestvina-Brady groups. We compute the cohomological dimension of each of these groups over any field and over any subring of the rationals.
In this thesis we investigate the Dehn functions of two different classes of groups: subdirect products, in particular subdirect products of limit groups; and Bestvina-Brady groups. Let D = Γ_1 \times ... \times Γ_n be a direct product of n \geq 3 finitely presented groups and let H be a subgroup of D. Suppose that each Γ_i contains a finite index subgroup Γ_i' \leq Γ_i such that the commutator subgroup [D', D'] of D' = Γ_1' \times ... \times Γ_n' is contained in H. Suppose furthermore that, for each i, the subgroup Γ_i H has finite index in D. We prove that H is finitely presented and satisfi…
We show that quasi-projective Bestvina-Brady groups are fundamental groups of complements to hyperplane arrangements. Furthermore we relate other normal subgroups of right-angled Artin groups to complements to arrangements of hypersurfaces. We thus obtain examples of hypersurface complements whose fundamental groups satisfy various finiteness properties.
A finite simple graph \G determines a right-angled Artin group G_\G, with one generator for each vertex v, and with one commutator relation vw=wv for each pair of vertices joined by an edge. The Bestvina-Brady group N_\G is the kernel of the projection G_\G \to \Z, which sends each generator v to 1. We establish precisely which graphs \G give rise to quasi-Kähler (respectively, Kähler) groups N_\G. This yields examples of quasi-projective groups which are not commensurable (up to finite kernels) to the fundamental group of any aspherical, quasi-projective variety.
Let K be a 2-dimensional finite flag complex. We study the CAT(0) dimension of the `Bestvina-Brady group', or `Artin kernel', Gamma_K. We show that Gamma_K has CAT(0) dimension 3 unless K admits a piecewise Euclidean metric of non-positive curvature. We give an example to show that this implication cannot be reversed. Different choices of K lead to examples where the CAT(0) dimension is 3, and either (i) the geometric dimension is 2, or (ii) the cohomological dimension is 2 and the geometric dimension is not known.
Brady proved that there are hyperbolic groups with finitely presented subgroups that are not of type $FP_3$ (and hence not hyperbolic). We reprove Brady's theorem by presenting a new construction. Our construction uses Bestvina-Brady Morse theory, but does not involve branched coverings.
We inspect Vietoris-Rips complexes $VR_t(X)$ of certain metric spaces $X$ using a new generalization of Bestvina-Brady discrete Morse theory. Our main result is a pair of metric criteria on $X$, called the Morse Criterion and Link Criterion, that allow us to deduce information about the homotopy types of certain $VR_t(X)$. One application is to topological data analysis, specifically persistence of homotopy type for certain Vietoris-Rips complexes. For example we recover some results of Adamaszek-Adams and Hausmann regarding homotopy types of $VR_t(S^n)$. Another application is to geometric gr…
We exhibit free-by-cyclic groups containing non-free locally-free subgroups, including some word hyperbolic examples. We also show that these groups are not subgroup separable. We use Bestvina-Brady Morse theory in our arguments.
We show that certain right-angled Coxeter groups have finite index subgroups that quotient to $\mathbb Z$ with finitely generated kernels. The proof uses Bestvina-Brady Morse theory facilitated by combinatorial arguments. We describe a variety of examples where the plan succeeds or fails. Among the successful examples are the right-angled reflection groups in $\mathbb H^4$ with fundamental domain the $120$-cell or the $24$-cell.
We prove that finite index subgroups of right angled Artin groups are conjugacy separable. We then apply this result to establish various properties of other classes of groups. In particular, we show that any word hyperbolic Coxeter group contains a conjugacy separable subgroup of finite index and has a residually finite outer automorphism group. Another consequence of the main result is that Bestvina-Brady groups are conjugacy separable and have solvable conjugacy problem.
A Garside group is a group admitting a finite lattice generating set D. Using techniques developed by Bestvina for Artin groups of finite type, we construct K(π,1)s for Garside groups. This construction shows that the (co)homology of any Garside group G is easily computed given the lattice D, and there is a simple sufficient condition that implies G is a duality group. The universal covers of these K(π,1)s enjoy Bestvina's weak non-positive curvature condition. Under a certain tameness condition, this implies that every solvable subgroup of G is virtually abelian.
We generalise the constructions of Brady and Lodha to give infinite families of hyperbolic groups, each having a finitely presented subgroup that is not of type $F_3$. By calculating the Euler characteristic of the hyperbolic groups constructed, we prove that infinitely many of them are pairwise non isomorphic. We further show that the first of these constructions cannot be generalised to dimensions higher than $3$.
A combination of Bestvina--Brady Morse theory and an acyclic reflection group trick produces a torsion-free finitely presented Q-Poincaré duality group which is not the fundamental group of an aspherical closed ANR Q-homology manifold. The acyclic construction suggests asking which Q-Poincaré duality groups act freely on Q-acyclic spaces, i.e., which groups are FH(Q). For example, the orbifold fundamental group Γ of a good orbifold satisfies Q-Poincaré duality, and we show Γ is FH(Q) if the Euler characteristics of certain fixed sets vanish.
We formalize an equivariant version of Bestvina-Brady discrete Morse theory, and apply it to Vietoris-Rips complexes in order to exhibit finite universal spaces for proper actions for all asymptotically CAT(0) groups.
A result of Gersten states that if $G$ is a hyperbolic group with integral cohomological dimension $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Z}}(G)=2$ then every finitely presented subgroup is hyperbolic. We generalize this result for the rational case $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Q}}(G)=2$. In particular, our result applies to the class of torsion-free hyperbolic groups $G$ with $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Z}}(G)=3$ and $\mathsf{cd}_{\mathbb{Q}}(G)=2$ discovered by Bestvina and Mess.
We construct new examples of groups with cohomological dimension 2 and geometric dimension 3 with respect to the families of finite subgroups, virtually abelian groups of bounded rank, and the family of virtually poly-cyclic subgroups. Our main ingredients are the examples constructed by Brady-Leary-Nucinckis and Fluch-Leary, and Bass-Serre theory.
For a connected graph L, let G(L) be a group with generators the vertex set of L, subject only to the relations that the ends of each edge commute. Now let H(L) be the kernel of the homomorphism from G(L) to the integers that takes each vertex to 1. M. Bestvina and N. Brady have shown that finiteness properties of H(L) are intimately related to the topology of the clique complex of L. We give a presentation for H(L), with generators the edges of L, and an infinite family of relators for each 1-cycle in L. In the case when the clique complex for L is simply-connected, we give a finite presentat…
We construct "pushing maps" on the cube complexes that model right-angled Artin groups (RAAGs) in order to study filling problems in certain subsets of these cube complexes. We use radial pushing to obtain upper bounds on higher divergence functions, finding that the k-dimensional divergence of a RAAG is bounded by r^{2k+2}. These divergence functions, previously defined for Hadamard manifolds to measure isoperimetric properties "at infinity," are defined here as a family of quasi-isometry invariants of groups; thus, these results give new information about the QI classification of RAAGs. By p…
Let $F$ be a finitely generated free group. By using Bestvina-Handel theory, as well as some further improvements, the eigengroups of a given automorphism of $F$ (and its fixed subgroup among them) are globally analyzed and described. In particular, an explicit description of all subgroups of $F$ which occur as the fixed subgroup of some automorphism is given.
We consider homological finiteness properties $FP_n$ of certain $\mathbb{N}$-graded Lie algebras. After proving some general results, see Theorem A, Corollary B and Corollary C, we concentrate on a family that can be considered as the Lie algebra version of the generalized Bestvina-Brady groups associated to a graph $Γ$. We prove that the homological finiteness properties of these Lie algebras can be determined in terms of the graph in the same way as in the group case. In the last version we have corrected some missprints, in particular the statement of Theorem D (from $n-1$-acyclicity to $n-…
The classical result by Dyer--Scott about fixed subgroups of finite order automorphisms of $F_n$ being free factors of $F_n$ is no longer true in $Z^m\times F_n$. Within this more general context, we prove a relaxed version in the spirit of Bestvina--Handel Theorem: the rank of fixed subgroups of finite order automorphisms is uniformly bounded in terms of $m,n$. We also study periodic points of endomorphisms of $Z^m\times F_n$, and give an algorithm to compute auto-fixed closures of finitely generated subgroups of $Z^m\times F_n$. On the way, we prove the analog of Day's Theorem for real eleme…
We introduce a combinatorial version of Stallings-Bestvina-Feighn-Dunwoody folding sequences. We then show how they are useful in analyzing the solvability of the uniform subgroup membership problem for fundamental groups of graphs of groups. Applications include coherent right-angled Artin groups and coherent solvable groups.
Bestvina, Feighn and Handel proved that every subgroup of the outer automorphism group, $\textrm{Out}(F_n)$, of the free group of rank $n$ is either virtually finitely generated abelian or contains a nonabelian free group. In this note we consider the more general situation of the outer automorphism group $\textrm{Out}(G)$ of a finitely generated free-by-finite group $G$. We show that $\textrm{Out}(G)$ is translation discrete and that every subgroup of $\textrm{Out}(G)$ is either virtually finitely generated abelian or contains a nonabelian free group.
Let $G$ be the right-angled Artin group associated to the flag complex $Σ$ and let $π:G\to\Z$ be its canonical height function. We investigate the presentation theory of the groups $Γ_n=π^{-1}(n\Z)$ and construct an algorithm that, given $n$ and $Σ$, outputs a presentation of optimal deficiency on a minimal generating set, provided $Σ$ is triangle-free; the deficiency tends to infinity as $n\to\infty$ if and only if the corresponding Bestvina-Brady kernel $\bigcap_nΓ_n$ is not finitely presented, and the algorithm detects whether this is the case. We explain why there cannot exist an algorithm…
For each integer n\ge 2, we construct an irreducible, smooth, complex projective variety M of dimension n, whose fundamental group has infinitely generated homology in degree n+1 and whose universal cover is a Stein manifold, homotopy equivalent to an infinite bouquet of n-dimensional spheres. This non-finiteness phenomenon is also reflected in the fact that the homotopy group π_n(M), viewed as a module over Zπ_1(M), is free of infinite rank. As a result, we give a negative answer to a question of Koll'ar on the existence of quasi-projective classifying spaces (up to commensurability) for the …
This is the first in a series of four papers (with research announcement posted on this arXiv) that together develop a decomposition theory for subgroups of Out(F_n). In this paper we develop further the theory of geometric EG strata of relative train track maps originally introduced in the work of Bestvina, Feighn, and Handel on the Tits alternative, with our focus trained on certain 2-dimensional models of such strata called "geometric models" and on the interesting properties of these models. A secondary purpose of this paper is to serve as a central reference for the whole series regarding…
The main theme of this paper is higher virtual algebraic fibering properties of right-angled Coxeter groups (RACGs), with a special focus on those whose defining flag complex is a finite building. We prove for particular classes of finite buildings that their random induced subcomplexes have a number of strong properties, most prominently that they are highly connected. From this we are able to deduce that the commutator subgroup of a RACG, with defining flag complex a finite building of a certain type, admits an epimorphism to $\mathbb{Z}$ whose kernel has strong topological finiteness proper…
We generalise Merzlyakov's theorem about the first-order theory of non-abelian free groups to all acylindrically hyperbolic groups. As a corollary, we deduce that if $G$ is an acylindrically hyperbolic group and $E(G)$ denotes the unique maximal finite normal subgroup of $G$, then $G$ and the HNN extension $G\dot{\ast}_{E(G)}$, which is simply the free product $G\ast\mathbb{Z}$ when $E(G)$ is trivial, have the same $\forall\exists$-theory. As a consequence, we prove the following conjecture, formulated by Casals-Ruiz, Garreta and de la Nuez González: acylindrically hyperbolic groups have trivi…
Let G be a closed transitive subgroup of Homeo(S^1) which contains a non-constant continuous path f: [0,1] --> G. We show that up to conjugation G is one of the following groups: SO(2,R), PSL(2,R), PSL_k(2,R), Homeo_k(S^1), Homeo(S^1). This verifies the classification suggested by Ghys [Enseign. Math. 47 (2001) 329-407]. As a corollary we show that the group PSL(2,R) is a maximal closed subgroup of Homeo(S^1) (we understand this is a conjecture of de la Harpe). We also show that if such a group G < Homeo(S^1) acts continuously transitively on k-tuples of points, k>3, then the closure of G is H…
We prove the equivalence between a relative bottleneck property and being quasi-isometric to a tree-graded space. As a consequence, we deduce that the quasi-trees of spaces defined axiomatically by Bestvina-Bromberg-Fujiwara are quasi-isometric to tree-graded spaces. Using this we prove that mapping class groups quasi-isometrically embed into a finite product of simplicial trees. In particular, these groups have finite Assouad-Nagata dimension, direct embeddings exhibiting $\ell^p$ compression exponent $1$ for all $p\geq 1$ and they quasi-isometrically embed into $\ell^1(\mathbb N)$. We deduce…
It is well-known that a point $T\in cv_N$ in the (unprojectivized) Culler-Vogtmann Outer space $cv_N$ is uniquely determined by its \emph{translation length function} $||.||_T:F_N\to\mathbb R$. A subset $S$ of a free group $F_N$ is called \emph{spectrally rigid} if, whenever $T,T'\in cv_N$ are such that $||g||_T=||g||_{T'}$ for every $g\in S$ then $T=T'$ in $cv_N$. By contrast to the similar questions for the Teichmüller space, it is known that for $N\ge 2$ there does not exist a finite spectrally rigid subset of $F_N$. In this paper we prove that for $N\ge 3$ if $H\le Aut(F_N)$ is a subgroup …
From Trees to Tripods: Proof of $K(π,1)$ for Artin groups with $ABI$-type spherical parabolics
Instytut Matematyczny, Uniwersytet Wrocławski（弗罗茨瓦夫大学数学研究所）；Department of Mathematics, Tufts University（塔夫茨大学数学系）；Department of Mathematics, The Ohio State University（俄亥俄州立大学数学系）
We describe the structure of quasiflats in two-dimensio\-nal Artin groups. We rely on the notion of metric systolicity developed in our previous work. Using this weak form of non-positive curvature and analyzing in details the combinatorics of tilings of the plane we describe precisely the building blocks for quasiflats in all two-dimensional Artin groups -- atomic sectors. This allows us to provide useful quasi-isometry invariants for such groups -- completions of atomic sectors, stable lines, and the intersection pattern of certain abelian subgroups. These are described combinatorially, in t…
