In order to enumerate the fake projective planes, as announced in~\cite{CS}, we found explicit generators and a presentation for each maximal arithmetic subgroup $\barΓ$ of~$PU(2,1)$ for which the (appropriately normalized) covolume equals~$1/N$ for some integer~$N\ge1$. Prasad and Yeung \cite{PY1,PY2} had given a list of all such $\barΓ$ (up to equivalence).
The generators were found by a computer search which uses the natural action of $PU(2,1)$ on the unit ball $B(\C^2)$ in~$\C^2$. Our main results here give criteria which ensure that the computer search has found sufficiently many elements of~$\barΓ$ to generate $\barΓ$, and describes a family of relations amongst the generating set sufficient to give a presentation of~$\barΓ$.
We give an example illustrating details of how this was done in the case of a particular~$\barΓ$ (for which $N=864$). While there are no fake projective planes in this case, we exhibit a torsion-free subgroup~$Π$ of index~$N$ in~$\barΓ$, and give some properties of the surface~$Π\backslash B(\C^2)$.
We construct an uncountable sequence of groups acting uniformly properly on hyperbolic spaces. We show that only countably many of these groups can be virtually torsion-free. This gives new examples of groups acting uniformly properly on hyperbolic spaces that are not virtually torsion-free and cannot be subgroups of hyperbolic groups.
The goal of this article is to survey some recent developments in the study of groups acting on hyperbolic spaces. We focus on the class of acylindrically hyperbolic groups; it is broad enough to include many examples of interest, yet a significant part of the theory of hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups can be generalized in this context. In particular, we discuss group theoretic Dehn filling and small cancellation theory in acylindrically hyperbolic groups. Many results discussed here rely on the new generalization of relative hyperbolicity based on the notion of a hyperbolically em…
In their first article, the authors initiated a systematic study of hyperbolic $Λ$-metric spaces, where $Λ$ is an ordered abelian group, and groups acting on such spaces. The present paper concentrates on the case $Λ= \mathbf{Z}^n$ taken with the right lexicographic order and studies the structure of finitely generated groups acting on hyperbolic $\mathbf{Z}^n$-metric spaces. Under certain constraints, the structure of such groups is described in terms of a {\em hierarchy} similar to the one established for $\mathbf{Z}^n$-free groups by Kharlampovich, Myasnikov, Remeslennikov and Serbin.
In this article, we construct partial periodic quotients of groups which have a non-elementary acylindrical action on a hyperbolic space. In particular, we provide infinite quotients of mapping class groups where a fixed power of every pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism is identified with a periodic or reducible element.
We study the acylindrical hyperbolicity of groups acting by isometries on CAT(0) cube complexes, and obtain simple criteria formulated in terms of stabilisers for the action. Namely, we show that a group acting essentially and non-elementarily on a finite dimensional irreducible CAT(0) cube complex is acylindrically hyperbolic if there exist two hyperplanes whose stabilisers intersect along a finite subgroup. We also give further conditions on the geometry of the complex so that the result holds if we only require the existence of a single pair of points whose stabilisers intersect along a fin…
We show that every non-elementary group $G$ acting properly and cocompactly by isometries on a proper geodesic Gromov hyperbolic space $X$ is growth tight. In other words, the exponential growth rate of $G$ for the geometric (pseudo)-distance induced by $X$ is greater than the exponential growth rate of any of its quotients by an infinite normal subgroup. This result generalizes from a unified framework previous works of Arzhantseva-Lysenok and Sambusetti, and provides an answer to a question of the latter.
In our paper arXiv:1310.6289, we stated that acylindrical hyperbolicity of a group is invariant under commensurability up to finite kernels. Unfortunately, the proof of this fact contained a gap. The goal of this erratum is to point out the gap and to correct the statements and proofs of results of arXiv:1310.6289 and the subsequent paper arXiv:1501.03066 affected by it.
A group with a geometric action on some hyperbolic space is necessarily word hyperbolic, but on the other hand every countable group acts (metrically) properly by isometries on a locally finite hyperbolic graph. In this paper we consider what happens when a group acts isometrically on a restricted class of hyperbolic spaces, for instance quasitrees. We obtain strong conclusions on the group structure if the action has a locally finite orbit, especially if the group is finitely generated. We also look at group actions on finite products of quasitrees, where our actions may be by automorphisms o…
We show that a geodesic metric space is hyperbolic in the sense of Gromov if and only if intersections of balls have bounded eccentricity. In particular, $\R$-trees are characterized among geodesic metric spaces by the property that the intersection of any two balls is always a ball. Both Gromov hyperbolicity and CAT($κ$) geometry can be characterised in terms of the geometry of the intersection of balls.
In this paper we study group actions on hyperbolic $Λ$-metric spaces, where $Λ$ is an ordered abelian group. $Λ$-metric spaces were first introduced by Morgan and Shalen in their study of hyperbolic structures and then Chiswell, following Gromov's ideas, introduced the notion of hyperbolicty for such spaces. Only the case of 0-hyperbolic $Λ$-metric spaces (that is, $Λ$-trees) was systematically studied, while the theory of general hyperbolic $Λ$-metric spaces was not developed at all. Hence, one of the goals of the present paper was to fill this gap and translate basic notions and results from…
We show that for any positive integer $n$ there exists a constant $C(n)>0$ such that any $n$-generated group $G$, which acts by isometries on a $δ$-hyperbolic space (with $δ>0$), is either free or has a nontrivial element with translation length at most $δC(n)$.
We give sufficient conditions for a group acting on a geodesic metric space to be acylindrically hyperbolic and mention various applications to groups acting on CAT($0$) spaces. We prove that a group acting on an irreducible non-spherical non-affine building is acylindrically hyperbolic provided there is a chamber with finite stabiliser whose orbit contains an apartment. Finally, we show that the following classes of groups admit an action on a building with those properties: orthogonal forms of Kac--Moody groups over arbitrary fields, and irreducible graph products of arbitrary groups - recov…
We introduce and study the notions of hyperbolically embedded and very rotating families of subgroups. The former notion can be thought of as a generalization of the peripheral structure of a relatively hyperbolic group, while the later one provides a natural framework for developing a geometric version of small cancellation theory. Examples of such families naturally occur in groups acting on hyperbolic spaces including hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups, mapping class groups, $Out(F_n)$, and the Cremona group. Other examples can be found among groups acting geometrically on $CAT(0)$…
This is a (very subjective) survey paper for nonspecialists covering group actions on Gromov hyperbolic spaces. The first section is about hyperbolic groups themselves, while the rest of the paper focuses on mapping class groups and $Out(F_n)$, and the way to understand their large scale geometry using their actions on various hyperbolic spaces constructed using projection complexes. This understanding for $Out(F_n)$ significantly lags behind that of mapping class groups and the paper ends with a few open questions.
We construct and classify all groups, given by triangular presentations associated to the smallest thick generalized quadrangle, that act simply transitively on the vertices of hyperbolic triangular buildings of the smallest non-trivial thickness. Our classification shows 23 non-isomorphic torsion free groups (obtained in an earlier work) and 168 non-isomorphic torsion groups acting on one of two possible buildings with the smallest thick generalized quadrangle as the link of each vertex. In analogy with the Euclidean case, we find both torsion and torsion free groups acting on the same buildi…
We obtain a number of finiteness results for groups acting on Gromov-hyperbolic spaces. In particular we show that a torsion-free locally quasiconvex hyperbolic group has only finitely many conjugacy classes of $n$-generated one-ended subgroups. We also show that the rank problem is solvable for the class of torsion-free locally quasiconvex hyperbolic groups (even though it is unsolvable for the class of all torsion-free hyperbolic groups). We apply our results to 3-manifold groups. Namely, suppose $G$ is the fundamental group of a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold fibering over a circle and suppos…
Given a class of compact spaces, we ask which groups can be maximal parabolic subgroups of a relatively hyperbolic group whose boundary is in the class. We investigate the class of 1-dimensional connected boundaries. We get that any non-torsion infinite f.g. group is a maximal parabolic subgroup of some relatively hyperbolic group with connected one-dimensional boundary without global cut point. For boundaries homeomorphic to a Sierpinski carpet or a 2-sphere, the only maximal parabolic subgroups allowed are virtual surface groups (hyperbolic, or virtually $\mathbb{Z} + \mathbb{Z}$).
We discuss a problem posed by Gersten: Is every automatic group which does not contain Z+Z subgroup, hyperbolic? To study this question, we define the notion of "n-tracks of length n", which is a structure like Z+Z, and prove its existence in the non-hyperbolic automatic groups with mild conditions. As an application, we show that if a group acts effectively, cellularly, properly discontinuously and cocompactly on a CAT(0) cube complex and its quotient is "weakly special", then the above question is answered affirmatively.
Tree-graded spaces are generalizations of R-trees. They appear as asymptotic cones of groups (when the cones have cut points). Since many questions about endomorphisms and automorphisms of groups, solving equations over groups, studying embeddings of a group into another group, etc. lead to actions of groups on the asymptotic cones, it is natural to consider actions of groups on tree-graded spaces. We develop a theory of such actions which generalizes the well known theory of groups acting on R-trees. As applications of our theory, we describe, in particular, relatively hyperbolic groups with …
We provide new examples of acylindrically hyperbolic groups arising from actions on simplicial trees. In particular, we consider amalgamated products and HNN-extensions, 1-relator groups, automorphism groups of polynomial algebras, 3-manifold groups and graph products. Acylindrical hyperbolicity is then used to obtain some results about the algebraic structure, analytic properties and measure equivalence rigidity of groups from these classes.
Suppose that a group $G$ acts non-elementarily on a hyperbolic space $S$ and does not fix any point of $\partial S$. A subgroup $H\le G$ is said to be geometrically dense in $G$ if the limit sets of $H$ and $G$ coincide and $H$ does not fix any point of $\partial S$. We prove that every invariant random subgroup of $G$ is either geometrically dense or contained in the elliptic radical (i.e., the maximal normal elliptic subgroup of $G$). In particular, every ergodic measure preserving action of an acylindrically hyperbolic group on a Borel probability space $(X,μ)$ either has finite stabilizers…
In this paper we study group actions on quasi-median graphs, or 'CAT(0) prism complexes', generalising the notion of CAT(0) cube complexes. We consider hyperplanes in a quasi-median graph $X$ and define the contact graph $\mathcal{C}X$ for these hyperplanes. We show that $\mathcal{C}X$ is always quasi-isometric to a tree, generalising a result of Hagen, and that under certain conditions a group action $G \curvearrowright X$ induces an acylindrical action $G \curvearrowright \mathcal{C}X$, giving a quasi-median analogue of a result of Behrstock, Hagen and Sisto. As an application, we exhibit an…
We see that a building whose Coxeter group is hyperbolic is itself hyperbolic. Thus any finitely generated group acting co-compactly on such a building is hyperbolic, hence automatic. We turn our attention to affine buildings and consider a group $Γ$ which acts simply transitively and in a ``type-rotating'' way on the vertices of a locally finite thick building of type $\tilde A_n$. We show that $Γ$ is biautomatic, using a presentation of $Γ$ and unique normal form for each element of $Γ$, as described in ``Groups acting simply transitively on the vertices of a building of type $\tilde A_n$'' …
We consider the class of countable groups possessing an action on a finite product of hyperbolic graphs where every infinite order element acts loxodromically. When the graphs are locally finite, we obtain strong structure theorems for the groups in this subclass, so that mapping class groups of genus at least 3 (and $Aut(F_n)$ and $Out(F_n)$ for $n\geq 4$) are not in this subclass. This contrasts with the general case, where Bestvina, Bromberg and Fujiwara showed the existence of proper actions of mapping class groups on a finite product of quasitrees. In particular these quasitrees cannot be…
We extend Ballmann and Swiatkowski's work on $L^2$-cohomology of groups acting on simplicial complexes and provide further vanishing results of $L^2$-cohomologies. In particular, we give a new criterion for property (T) for groups acting on an n-dimensional simplcial complex.
In this paper we obtain uniform positive lower bounds on stable commutator length in word-hyperbolic groups and certain groups acting on hyperbolic spaces (namely the mapping class group acting on the complex of curves, and an amalgamated free product acting on the Bass-Serre tree). If G is a word hyperbolic group which is delta hyperbolic with respect to a symmetric generating set S, then there is a positive constant C depending only on delta and on |S| such that every element of G either has a power which is conjugate to its inverse, or else the stable commutator length is at least equal to …
We show that Gromov's monster groups arising from i.i.d. labelings of expander graphs do not admit non-elementary actions on geodesic hyperbolic spaces. The proof relies on comparing properties of random walks on randomly labeled graphs and on groups acting non-elementarily on hyperbolic spaces.
Generalising results of Razborov and Safin, and answering a question of Button, we prove that for every hyperbolic group there exists a constant $α>0$ such that for every finite subset $U$ that is not contained in a virtually cyclic subgroup $|U^n|\geqslant (α|U|)^{[(n+1)/2]}$. Similar estimates are established for groups acting acylindrically on trees or hyperbolic spaces.
This paper is a survey dedicated to the following question: given a group acting on some CAT(0) cube complex, how to exploit this action to determine whether or not the group is Gromov / relatively / acylindrically hyperbolic? As much as possible, the different criteria we mention are illustrated by applications. We also propose a model for universal acylindrical actions of cubulable groups and give a few applications to Morse, stable and hyperbolically embedded subgroups.
We define a new notion of contracting element of a group and we show that contracting elements coincide with hyperbolic elements in relatively hyperbolic groups, pseudo-Anosovs in mapping class groups, rank one isometries in groups acting properly on proper CAT(0) spaces, elements acting hyperbolically on the Bass-Serre tree in graph manifold groups. We also define a related notion of weakly contracting element, and show that those coincide with hyperbolic elements in groups acting acylindrically on hyperbolic spaces and with iwips in $Out(F_n)$, $n\geq 3$. We prove that any simple random walk…
In this article we study surface subgroups of groups acting simply transitively on vertex sets of certain hyperbolic triangular buildings. Kangaslampi and Vdovina have constructed and classified all groups acting simply transitively on the vertices of hyperbolic triangular buildings of the smallest non-trivial thickness. These groups gave the first examples of cocompact lattices acting simply transitively on vertices of hyperbolic triangular Kac-Moody buildings that are not right-angled. The hyperbolic buildings arise as universal covers of polyhedra glued together from with 15 triangular face…
Recent work of Ballas, Cooper, and Leitner identifies $(n+1)$ types of $n$-dimensional convex projective cusps, one of which is the standard hyperbolic cusp. Work of Ballas-Marquis, and Ballas-Danciger-Lee give examples of these exotic (non-hyperbolic) type cusps in dimension $3$. Here an extension of the techniques of Ballas-Marquis shows the existence of all cusp types in all dimensions, except diagonalizable (type $n$).
We prove that for a one-ended hyperbolic graph $X$, the size of the quotient $X/G$ by a group $G$ acting freely and cocompactly bounds from below the number of simplices in an Eilenberg-MacLane space for $G$. We apply this theorem to show that one-ended hyperbolic cubulated groups (or more generally, one-ended hyperbolic groups with globally stable cylinders à la Rips-Sela) cannot contain isomorphic finite-index subgroups of different indices.
In this paper we show how to obtain representations of Coxeter groups acting on H^n to certain classical groups. We determine when the kernel of such a representation is torsion-free and thus the quotient a hyperbolic n-manifold.
Let G be an acylindrically hyperbolic group. We consider a random subgroup H in G, generated by a finite collection of independent random walks. We show that, with asymptotic probability one, such a random subgroup H of G is a free group, and the semidirect product of H acting on E(G) is hyperbolically embedded in G, where E(G) is the unique maximal finite normal subgroup of G.
We study the unitary boundary representation of a strongly transitive group acting on a right-angled hyperbolic building. We show its irreducibility. We do so by associating to such a representation a representation of a certain Hecke algebra, which is a deformation of the classical representation of a hyperbolic reflection group. We show that the associated Hecke algebra representation is irreducible.
The notion of limit roots of a Coxeter group W was recently introduced (see arXiv:1112.5415 and arXiv:1303.6710): they are the accumulation points of directions of roots of a root system for W. In the case where the root system lives in a Lorentzian space W admits a faithful representation as a discrete reflection group of isometries on a hyperbolic space; the accumulation set of any of its orbits is then classically called the limit set of W. In this article we show that the limit roots of a Coxeter group W acting on a Lorentzian space is equal to the limit set of W seen as a discrete reflect…
