We show that group actions on irreducible ${\rm CAT(0)}$ cube complexes with no free faces are uniquely determined by their $\ell^1$ length function. Actions are allowed to be non-proper and non-cocompact, as long as they are minimal and have no finite orbit in the visual boundary. This is, to our knowledge, the first length-spectrum rigidity result in a setting of non-positive curvature (with the exception of some particular cases in dimension 2 and symmetric spaces).
As our main tool, we develop a notion of cross ratio on Roller boundaries of ${\rm CAT(0)}$ cube complexes. Inspired by results in negative curvature, we give a general framework reducing length-spectrum rigidity questions to the problem of extending cross-ratio preserving maps between (subsets of) Roller boundaries. The core of our work is then to show that, when there are no free faces, these cross-ratio preserving maps always extend to cubical isomorphisms. All our results equally apply to cube complexes with variable edge lengths.
As a special case of our work, we construct a compactification of the Charney-Stambaugh-Vogtmann Outer Space for the group of untwisted outer automorphisms of an (irreducible) right-angled Artin group. This generalises the length function compactification of the classical Culler-Vogtmann Outer Space.
These notes grew out of two lectures I have given on CAT(0) cube complexes. I've tried to keep the material elementary and self-contained in order to keep the material easily accessible and to provide an elementary introduction on the topic for advanced bachelor students or early master students with little to no previous knowledge on geometric group theory or CAT(0) geometry.
We introduce a $\mathbb{Z}$-valued cross ratio on Roller boundaries of ${\rm CAT(0)}$ cube complexes. We motivate its relevance by showing that every cross-ratio preserving bijection of Roller boundaries uniquely extends to a cubical isomorphism. Our results are strikingly general and even apply to infinite dimensional, locally infinite cube complexes with trivial automorphism group.
We develop the foundations of the theory of relatively geometric actions of relatively hyperbolic groups on CAT(0) cube complexes, a notion introduced in our previous work [5]. In the relatively geometric setting we prove: full relatively quasi-convex subgroups are convex compact; an analog of Agol's Theorem; and a version of Haglund--Wise's Canonical Completion and Retraction.
Given a CAT(0) cube complex X, we show that if Aut(X) $\neq$ Isom(X) then there exists a full subcomplex of X which decomposes as a product with $\mathbb{R}^n$. As applications, we prove that if X is $δ$-hyperbolic, cocompact and 1-ended, then Aut(X) $=$ Isom(X) unless X is quasi-isometric to $\mathbb{H}^2$, and extend the rank-rigidity result of Caprace-Sageev to any lattice $ Γ\leq$ Isom(X).
We explain how to adapt a construction of M. Sageev's to construct a proper action on a CAT(0) cube complex starting from a proper action on a wall space, and use this to deduce that if G is a group containing an amenable subgroup H of super-polynomial growth and G acts properly on a space with walls then there are arbitrarily large families of walls in the wall space which pairwise cross.
In a seminal paper, Stallings introduced folding of morphisms of graphs. One consequence of folding is the representation of finitely-generated subgroups of a finite-rank free group as immersions of finite graphs. Stallings's methods allow one to construct this representation algorithmically, giving effective, algorithmic answers and proofs to classical questions about subgroups of free groups. Recently Dani--Levcovitz used Stallings-like methods to study subgroups of right-angled Coxeter groups, which act geometrically on CAT(0) cube complexes. In this paper we extend their techniques to fund…
In this paper, we study the geometry of cone-offs of CAT(0) cube complexes over a family of combinatorially convex subcomplexes, with an emphasis on their Gromov-hyperbolicity. A first application gives a direct cubical proof of the characterization of the (strong) relative hyperbolicity of right-angled Coxeter groups, which is a particular case of a result due to Behrstock, Caprace and Hagen. A second application gives the acylindrical hyperbolicity of $C'(1/4)-T(4)$ small cancellation quotients of free products.
The main technical result of this paper is to characterize the contracting isometries of a CAT(0) cube complex without any assumption on its local finiteness. Afterwards, we introduce the combinatorial boundary of a CAT(0) cube complex, and we show that contracting isometries are strongly related to isolated points at infinity, when the complex is locally finite. This boundary turns out to appear naturally in the context of Guba and Sapir's diagram groups, and we apply our main criterion to determine precisely when an element of a diagram group induces a contracting isometry on the associated …
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.
We show that the n-homotopy category of connected (n+1)-dimensional Menger manifolds is isomorphic to the homotopy category of connected Hilbert cube manifolds whose k-dimensional homotopy groups are trivial for each k > n.
We provide geometric conditions on a pair of hyperplanes of a CAT(0) cube complex that imply divergence bounds for the cube complex. As an application, we classify all right-angled Coxeter groups with quadratic divergence and show right-angled Coxeter groups cannot exhibit a divergence function between quadratic and cubic. This generalizes a theorem of Dani-Thomas that addressed the class of 2-dimensional right-angled Coxeter groups. As another application, we provide an inductive graph theoretic criteria on a right-angled Coxeter group's defining graph which allows us to recognize arbitrary i…
The Roller boundary is a well-known compactification of a CAT(0) cube complex X. When X is locally finite, essential, irreducible, non-Euclidean and admits a cocompact action by a group G, Nevo-Sageev show that a subset, B(X), of the Roller boundary is the realization of the Poisson boundary and that the action of G on B(X) is minimal and strongly proximal. Additionally, these authors show B(X) satisfies many other desirable dynamical and topological properties. In this article we give several equivalent characterizations for when B(X) is equal to the entire Roller boundary. As an application …
We give a proof to the following theorem, which is well-known among experts: A connected subcomplex $W$ of a finite dimensional CAT(0) cubed complex $X$ is convex if and only if Lk$(v, W)$ is a full subcomplex of Lk$(v, X)$ for every vertex $v$ of $W$.
We show under weak hypotheses that $\partial X$, the Roller boundary of a finite dimensional CAT(0) cube complex $X$ is the Furstenberg-Poisson boundary of a sufficiently nice random walk on an acting group $Γ$. In particular, we show that if $Γ$ admits a nonelementary proper action on $X$, and $μ$ is a generating probability measure of finite entropy and finite first logarithmic moment, then there is a $μ$-stationary measure on $\partial X$ making it the Furstenberg-Poisson boundary for the $μ$-random walk on $Γ$. We also show that the support is contained in the closure of the regular points…
Random walks on spaces with hyperbolic properties tend to sublinearly track geodesic rays which point in certain hyperbolic-like directions. Qing-Rafi-Tiozzo recently introduced the sublinearly Morse boundary and proved that this boundary is a quasi-isometry invariant which captures a notion of generic direction in a broad context. In this article, we develop the geometric foundations of sublinear Morseness in the mapping class group and Teichmüller space. We prove that their sublinearly Morse boundaries are visibility spaces and admit continuous equivariant injections into the boundary of the…
We give a generalized and self-contained account of Haglund-Paulin's wallspaces and Sageev's construction of the CAT(0) cube complex dual to a wallspace. We examine criteria on a wallspace leading to finiteness properties of its dual cube complex. Our discussion is aimed at readers wishing to apply these methods to produce actions of groups on cube complexes and understand their nature. We develop the wallspace ideas in a level of generality that facilitates their application. Our main result describes the structure of dual cube complexes arising from relatively hyperbolic groups. Let H_1,...,…
We prove that if $G = G_1\times\dots\times G_n$ acts essentially, properly and cocompactly on a CAT(0) cube complex X, then the cube complex splits as a product. We use this theorem to give various examples of groups for which the minimal dimension of a cube complex the group acts on is strictly larger than that of the minimal dimension of a CAT(0) space upon which the group acts.
We construct a finitely generated 2-dimensional group that acts properly on a locally finite CAT(0) cube complex but does not act properly on a finite dimensional CAT(0) cube complex.
We present the characterization of metric spaces that are micro-, macro- or bi-uniformly equivalent to the extended Cantor set $\{\sum_{i=-n}^\infty\frac{2x_i}{3^i}:n\in\IN ,\;(x_i)_{i\in\IZ}\in\{0,1\}^\IZ\}\subset\IR$, which is bi-uniformly equivalent to the Cantor bi-cube $2^{<\IZ}=\{(x_i)_{i\in\IZ}\in \{0,1\}^\IZ:\exists n\;\forall i\ge n\;x_i=0\}$ endowed with the metric $d((x_i),(y_i))=\max_{i\in\IZ}2^i|x_i-y_i|$. Those characterizations imply that any two (uncountable) proper isometrically homogeneous ultrametric spaces are coarsely (and bi-uniformly) equivalent. This implies that any tw…
We construct new families of quasimorphisms on many groups acting on CAT(0) cube complexes. These quasimorphisms have a uniformly bounded defect of 12, and they "see" all elements that act hyperbolically on the cube complex. We deduce that all such elements have stable commutator length at least 1/24. The group actions for which these results apply include the standard actions of right-angled Artin groups on their associated CAT(0) cube complexes. In particular, every non-trivial element of a right-angled Artin group has stable commutator length at least 1/24. These results make use of some ne…
We consider a finite-dimensional, locally finite CAT(0) cube complex X admitting a co-compact properly discontinuous countable group of automorphisms G. We construct a natural compact metric space B(X) on which G acts by homeomorphisms, the action being minimal and strongly proximal. Furthermore, for any generating probability measure on G, B(X) admits a unique stationary measure, and when the measure has finite logarithmic moment, it constitutes a compact metric model of the Poisson boundary. We identify a dense G-delta subset of B(X) on which the action of G is Borel-amenable, and describe t…
Let G be a group acting geometrically on a CAT(0) cube complex X. We prove first that G is hyperbolic relative to the collection P of subgroups if and only if the simplicial boundary of X is the disjoint union of a nonempty discrete set, together with a pairwise-disjoint collection of subcomplexes corresponding, in the appropriate sense, to elements of P. As a special case of this result is a new proof, in the cubical case, of a Theorem of Hruska--Kleiner regarding Tits boundaries of relatively hyperbolic CAT(0) spaces. Second, we relate the existence of cut-points in asymptotic cones of a cub…
We give a finite presentation for the braid twist group of a decorated surface. If the decorated surface arises from a triangulated marked surface without punctures, we obtain a finite presentation for the spherical twist group of the associated 3-Calabi-Yau triangulated category. The motivation/application is that the result will be used to show that the (principal component of) space of stability conditions on the 3-Calabi-Yau category is simply connected in the sequel.
This paper examines the category C^k_{d,n} whose morphisms are d-dimensional smooth manifolds that are properly embedded in the product of a k-dimensional cube with an (d+n-k)-dimensional Euclidean space. There are k directions to compose k-dimensional cubes, so C^k_{d,n} is a (strict) k-tuple category. The geometric realization of the k-dimensional multi-nerve is the classifying space BC^k_{d,n}. At the end of the paper we construct an infinite loop map to Waldhausens K-theory. ΩBC^1_{d,n}-> A(BO(d)), We believe that the map factors through Ω^\inftyΣ^\infty(BO(d)_+) and that the composite B{D…
Let $C(L)$ be the right-angled Coxeter group defined by an abstract triangulation $L$ of $\mathbb{S}^2$. We show that $C(L)$ is isomorphic to a hyperbolic right-angled reflection group if and only if $L$ can be realized as an acute triangulation. The proof relies on the theory of CAT(-1) spaces. A corollary is that an abstract triangulation of $\mathbb{S}^2$ can be realized as an acute triangulation exactly when it satisfies a combinatorial condition called "flag no-square". We also study generalizations of this result to other angle bounds, other planar surfaces and other dimensions.
We are interested in the 3-Calabi-Yau categories $\mathcal{D}$ arising from quivers with potential associated to a triangulated marked surface $\mathbf{S}$ (without punctures). We prove that the spherical twist group ST of $\mathcal{D}$ is isomorphic to a subgroup (generated by braid twists) of the mapping class group of the decorated marked surface $\mathbf{S}_{\bigtriangleup}$. Here $\mathbf{S}_{\bigtriangleup}$ is the surface obtained from $\mathbf{S}$ by decorating with a set of decorated points, where the number of points equals the number of triangles in any triangulations of $\mathbf{S}…
