Accepted version, to appear in the Journal of the London MS. Section 7, giving the homeomorphism to the Bestvina-Feighn bordification, has been substantially revised
We give a simple construction of an equivariant deformation retract of Outer space which is homeomorphic to the Bestvina-Feighn bordification. This results in a much easier proof that the bordification is (2n-5)-connected at infinity, and hence that $Out(F_n)$ is a virtual duality group.
We prove that the minimally displaced set of a relatively irreducible automorphism of a free splitting, situated in a deformation space, is uniformly locally finite. The minimally displaced set coincides with the train track points for an irreducible automorphism. We develop the theory in a general setting of deformation spaces of free products, having in mind the study of the action of reducible automorphisms of a free group on the simplicial bordification of Outer Space. For instance, a reducible automorphism will have invariant free factors, act on the corresponding stratum of the bordifica…
This is the second of two papers in which we investigate the properties of displacement functions of automorphisms of free groups (more generally, free products) on the Culler-Vogtmann Outer space $CV_n$ and its simplicial bordification. We develop a theory for both reducible and irreducible autormorphisms. As we reach the bordification of $CV_n$ we have to deal with general deformation spaces, for this reason we developed the theory in such generality. In first paper~\cite{FMpartI} we studied general properties of the displacement functions, such as well-orderability of the spectrum and the t…
The object of this expository work is to try to unveil the topological/geometric intuition behind the theory of free groups and their automorphism and outer automorphism groups. The method we follow is to focus on a series of problems in the study of free groups, and use the solutions of those problems to motivate topological/geometric tools. We do not aim to write down proofs which minimize the number of alphanumeric characters. We instead strive to write down proofs which maximize the development of broadly applicable geometric tools. In Part I we study problems solved by Nielsen and Whitehe…
This paper studies the geometric rigidity of the universal Coxeter group of rank $n$, which is the free product $W_n$ of $n$ copies of $\mathbb{Z}/2\mathbb{Z}$. We prove that for $n\geq 4$ the group of symmetries of the spine of the Guirardel-Levitt outer space of $W_n$ is reduced to the outer automorphism group $\mathrm{Out}(W_n)$.
We show that strongly contracting geodesics in Outer space project to parameterized quasigeodesics in the free factor complex. This result provides a converse to a theorem of Bestvina--Feighn, and is used to give conditions for when a subgroup of $\mathrm{Out}(\mathbb{F})$ has a quasi-isometric orbit map into the free factor complex. It also allows one to construct many new examples of strongly contracting geodesics in Outer space.
We prove that for the harmonic measure associated to a random walk on Out$(F_r)$ satisfying some mild conditions, a typical tree in the boundary of Outer space is trivalent and nongeometric. This answers a question of M. Bestvina.
For any right-angled Artin group $A_Γ$ we construct a finite-dimensional space $\mathcal{O}_Γ$ on which the group $\text{Out}(A_Γ)$ of outer automorphisms of $A_Γ$ acts with finite point stabilizers. We prove that $\mathcal{O}_Γ$ is contractible, so that the quotient is a rational classifying space for $\text{Out}(A_Γ)$. The space $\mathcal{O}_Γ$ blends features of the symmetric space of lattices in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with those of Outer space for the free group $F_n$. Points in $\mathcal{O}_Γ$ are locally CAT(0) metric spaces that are homeomorphic (but not isometric) to certain locally CAT(0) cub…
We define a new compactification of outer space $CV_N$ (the \emph{Pacman compactification}) which is an absolute retract, for which the boundary is a $Z$-set. The classical compactification $\overline{CV_N}$ made of very small $F_N$-actions on $\mathbb{R}$-trees, however, fails to be locally $4$-connected as soon as $N\ge 4$. The Pacman compactification is a blow-up of $\overline{CV_N}$, obtained by assigning an orientation to every arc with nontrivial stabilizer in the trees.
In this paper we consider two piecewise Riemannian metrics defined on the Culler-Vogtmann outer space which we call the entropy metric and the pressure metric. As a result of work of McMullen, these metrics can be seen as analogs of the Weil-Petersson metric on the Teichmüller space of a closed surface. We show that while the geometric analysis of these metrics is similar to that of the Weil-Petersson metric, from the point of view of geometric group theory, these metrics behave very differently to the Weil-Petersson metric. Specifically, we show that when the rank $r$ is at least 4, the actio…
We study the geometry of Outer Space $CV_n$ in regard of the asymmetric Lipschitz metric via envelopes, that is the set of all geodesics between two points. In the simplicial structure of $CV_n$ the envelopes are polytopes. We construct a piecewise unique geodesic between any two points in $CV_n$ by concatenating edges of these polytopes. In fact rigid geodesics can be identified with edges of out- and in-envelopes, that is the set of all geodesics from or to a base point with a given maximally stretched path. We introduce a notion of general position for pairs of points which is a dense and o…
We investigate the combinatorial and geometric properties of automorphism groups of universal right-angled Coxeter groups, which are the automorphism groups of free products of copies of Z_2. It is currently an open question as to whether or not these automorphism groups have non-positive curvature. Analogous to Outer Space as a model for Out(F_n), we prove that the natural combinatorial and topological model for their outer automorphism groups can \emph{not} be given an equivariant CAT(0) metric. This is particularly interesting as there are very few non-trivial examples of proving that a mod…