This paper is a continuation of our previous work with Margalit where we studied group actions on projection complexes. In that paper, we demonstrated sufficient conditions so that the normal closure of a family of subgroups of vertex stabilizers is a free product of certain conjugates of these subgroups. In this paper, we study both the quotient of the projection complex by this normal subgroup and the action of the quotient group on the quotient of the projection complex. We show that under certain conditions that the quotient complex is $δ$-hyperbolic. Additionally, under certain circumstances, we show that if the original action on the projection complex was a non-elementary WPD action, then so is the action of the quotient group on the quotient of the projection complex. This implies that the quotient group is acylindrically hyperbolic.
We give a geometric description of a certain class of epimorphisms between complex reflection groups. We classify these epimorphisms, which can be interpreted as ``morphisms'' between the diagrams symbolizing standard presentations by generators and relations for complex reflection groups and their braid groups.
We show how to derive hyperbolicity of the free factor complex of $F_N$ from the Handel-Mosher proof of hyperbolicity of the free splitting complex of $F_N$, thus obtaining an alternative proof of a theorem of Bestvina-Feighn. We also show that under the natural map $τ$ from the free splitting complex to free factor complex, a geodesic $[x,y]$ maps to a path that is uniformly Hausdorff-close to a geodesic $[τ(x),τ(y)]$ .
For any orientable finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold, this paper proves that the profinite isomorphism type of the fundamental group uniquely determines the isomorphism type of the first integral cohomology, as marked with the Thurston norm and the fibered classes; moreover, up to finite ambiguity, the profinite isomorphism type determines the isomorphism type of the fundamental group, among the class of finitely generated 3-manifold groups.
Rips and Sela introduced the notion of globally stable cylinders and asked if all Gromov hyperbolic groups admit such. We prove that hyperbolic cubulated groups admit globally stable cylinders.
Addressing a question of Zaremsky, we give conditions on a finite simplicial graph which guarantee that the associated matching arc complex is connected and hyperbolic.
We prove a combination theorem for hyperbolic groups, in the case of groups acting on complexes displaying combinatorial features reminiscent of non-positive curvature. Such complexes include for instance weakly systolic complexes and C'(1/6) small cancellation polygonal complexes. Our proof involves constructing a potential Gromov boundary for the resulting groups and analyzing the dynamics of the action on the boundary in order to use Bowditch's characterization of hyperbolicity. A key ingredient is the introduction of a combinatorial property that implies a weak form of non-positive curvatu…
We prove that almost all arc complexes do not admit a CAT(0) metric with finitely many shapes, in particular any finite-index subgroup of the mapping class group does not preserve such a metric on the arc complex. We also show the analogous statement for all but finitely many disc complexes of handlebodies and free splitting complexes of free groups. The obstruction is combinatorial. These complexes are all hyperbolic and contractible but despite this we show that they satisfy no combinatorial isoperimetric inequality: for any n there is a loop of length 4 that only bounds discs consisting of …
A simplicial complex is called negatively curved if all its simplices are isometric to simplices in hyperbolic space, and it satisfies Gromov's Link Condition. We prove that, subject to certain conditions, a compact graph of spaces whose vertex spaces are negatively curved 2-complexes, and whose edge spaces are points or circles, is negatively curved. As a consequence, we deduce that certain groups are CAT(-1). These include hyperbolic limit groups, and hyperbolic groups whose JSJ components are fundamental groups of negatively curved 2-complexes---for example, finite graphs of free groups wit…
We introduce the notion of strictly systolic angled complexes. They generalize Januszkiewickz and Świątkowski's $7$-systolic simplicial complexes and also their metric counterparts, which appear as natural analogues to Huang and Osajda's metrically systolic simplicial complexes in the context of negative curvature. We prove that strictly systolic angled complexes and the groups that act on them geometrically, together with their finitely presented subgroups, are hyperbolic. We use these complexes to study the geometry of one-relator groups without torsion, and prove hyperbolicity of such group…
This is an announcement of some of the results obtained as a part of the second author's Ph.D. thesis. In the first part, we prove that the fundamental group of an acylindrical complex of hyperbolic groups with finite edge groups is hyperbolic in which the vertex groups are quasiconvex. In the second part of the article, we prove the existence of Cannon-Thurston maps for certain subcomplexes of groups in acylindrical complexes of hyperbolic groups (see Theorem 0.4).
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 …
In the context of CAT(0) cubical groups, we develop an analogue of the theory of curve complexes and subsurface projections. The role of the subsurfaces is played by a collection of convex subcomplexes called a \emph{factor system}, and the role of the curve graph is played by the \emph{contact graph}. There are a number of close parallels between the contact graph and the curve graph, including hyperbolicity, acylindricity of the action, the existence of hierarchy paths, and a Masur--Minsky-style distance formula. We then define a \emph{hierarchically hyperbolic space}; the class of such spac…
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.
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.
Given a complex of groups over a finite simplicial complex in the sense of Haefliger, we give conditions under which it is possible to build an EZ-structure in the sense of Farrell-Lafont for its fundamental group out of such structures for its local groups. As an application, we prove a combination theorem that yields a procedure for getting hyperbolic groups as fundamental groups of simple complexes of hyperbolic groups. The construction provides a description of the Gromov boundary of such groups.
Let G be a non-elementary torsion-free hyperbolic group. We prove that the exponential growth rate of the periodic quotient G/G^n tends to the one of G as n odd approaches infinity. Moreover we provide an estimate at which the convergence is taking place.
This paper describes some generalizations of the results presented in the book "Geometry of defining Relations in Groups" , of A.Yu.Ol'shanskii to the case of non-cyclic torsion-free hyperbolic groups. In particular, it is proved that for every non-cyclic torsion-free hyperbolic group, there exists a non-Abelian torsion-free quotient group in which all proper subgroups are cyclic, and the intersection of any two of them is not trivial.
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…
Given a group $G$ acting geometrically on a systolic complex $X$ and a hyperbolic isometry $h \in G$, we study the associated action of $h$ on the systolic boundary $\partial X$. We show that $h$ has a canonical pair of fixed points on the boundary and that it acts trivially on the boundary if and only if it is virtually central. The key tool that we use to study the action of $h$ on $\partial X$ is the notion of a $K$-displacement set of $h$, which generalises the classical minimal displacement set of $h$. We also prove that systolic complexes equipped with a geometric action of a group are a…
We introduce and study the notion of relative rigidity for pairs $(X,\JJ)$ where 1) $X$ is a hyperbolic metric space and $\JJ$ a collection of quasiconvex sets 2) $X$ is a relatively hyperbolic group and $\JJ$ the collection of parabolics 3) $X$ is a higher rank symmetric space and $\JJ$ an equivariant collection of maximal flats Relative rigidity can roughly be described as upgrading a uniformly proper map between two such $\JJ$'s to a quasi-isometry between the corresponding $X$'s. A related notion is that of a $C$-complex which is the adaptation of a Tits complex to this context. We prove t…
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.
We construct several series of explicit presentations of infinite hyperbolic groups enjoying Kazhdan's property (T). Some of them are significantly shorter than the previously known shortest examples. Moreover, we show that some of those hyperbolic Kazhdan groups possess finite simple quotient groups of arbitrarily large rank; they constitute the first known specimens combining those properties. All the hyperbolic groups we consider are non-positively curved k-fold generalized triangle groups, i.e. groups that possess a simplicial action on a CAT(0) triangle complex, which is sharply transitiv…
We examine a graph $Γ$ encoding the intersection of hyperplane carriers in a CAT(0) cube complex $\widetilde X$. The main result is that $Γ$ is quasi-isometric to a tree. This implies that a group $G$ acting properly and cocompactly on $\widetilde X$ is weakly hyperbolic relative to the hyperplane stabilizers. Using disc diagram techniques and Wright's recent result on the aymptotic dimension of CAT(0) cube complexes, we give a generalization of a theorem of Bell and Dranishnikov on the finite asymptotic dimension of graphs of asymptotically finite-dimensional groups. More precisely, we prove …
We explain and generalise a construction due to Gromov to realise geometric small cancellation groups over graphs of groups as fundamental groups of non-positively curved 2-dimensional complexes of groups. We then give conditions so that the hyperbolicity and some finiteness properties of the small cancellation quotient can be deduced from analogous properties for the local groups of the initial graph of groups.
Let I(p,v) be Bourdon's building, the unique simply-connected 2-complex such that all 2-cells are regular right-angled hyperbolic p-gons and the link at each vertex is the complete bipartite graph K(v,v). We investigate and mostly determine the set of triples (p,v,g) for which there exists a uniform lattice Γ in Aut(I(p,v)) such that Γ\I(p,v) is a compact orientable surface of genus g. Surprisingly, the existence of Γ depends upon the value of v. The remaining cases lead to open questions in tessellations of surfaces and in number theory. Our construction of Γ, together with a theorem of Haglu…
We study random quotients of a fixed non-elementary hyperbolic group in the Gromov density model. Let $G=\langle S\;\vert\; T\rangle $ be a finite presentation of a non-elementary hyperbolic group, and let $Ann_{l,ω}(G)$ be the set of elements of norm between $l-ω(l)$ and $l$ in $G$. A random quotient at density $d$ and length $ω$-near $l$ is defined by killing a uniformly randomly chosen set of $\vert S_{l}(G)\vert ^{d}$ words in $Ann_{l,ω(l)}(G)$, where $ω(l) =o_{l}(l)$. We prove that for any d>1/3, such a quotient has Property (T) with probability tending to $1$ as $l$ tends to infinity. Th…
Let $G$ be either a non-elementary (word) hyperbolic group or a large group (both in the sense of Gromov). In this paper we describe several approaches for constructing continuous families of periodic quotients of $G$ with various properties. The first three methods work for any non-elementary hyperbolic group, producing three different continua of periodic quotients of $G$. They are based on the results and techniques, that were developed by Ivanov and Olshanskii in order to show that there exists an integer $n$ such that $G/G^n$ is an infinite group of exponent $n$. The fourth approach start…
In this article we prove that the set of torsion-free groups acting by isometries on a hyperbolic metric space whose entropy is bounded above and with a compact quotient is finite. The number of such groups can be estimated in terms of the hyperbolicity constant and of an upper bound of the entropy of the space and of an upper bound of the diameter of its quotient. As a consequence we show that the set of non cyclic torsion-free $δ$-hyperbolic marked groups whose entropy is bounded above by a number $H$ is finite with cardinality depending on $δ$ and $H$ alone. From these results, we draw homo…
We determine the minimal volume of arithmetic hyperbolic orientable n-dimensional orbifolds (compact and non-compact) for every odd dimension n>3. Combined with the previously known results it solves the minimal volume problem for arithmetic hyperbolic n-orbifolds in all dimensions.
Ian Leary inquires whether a class of hyperbolic finitely presented groups are residually finite. We answer in the affirmative by giving a systematic version of a construction in his paper, which shows that the standard 2-complexes of these presentations have a VH-structure. This structure induces a splitting of these groups, which together with hyperbolicity, implies that these groups are residually finite.
The question which motivates the article is the following: given a group acting on a CAT(0) cube complex, how can we prove that it is acylindrically hyperbolic? Keeping this goal in mind, we show a weak acylindricity of the action on the contact graph associated to a CAT(0) cube complex, and we prove a characterisation of WPD contracting isometries of CAT(0) cube complexes. As a first consequence, we find alternative arguments to show several criteria which were proved by Indira Chatterji and Alexandre Martin. Next, we show that if a group acts essentially and acylindrically on the hyperplanes…
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.
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…
A group theoretic version of Dehn surgery is studied. Starting with an arbitrary relatively hyperbolic group $G$ we define a peripheral filling procedure, which produces quotients of $G$ by imitating the effect of the Dehn filling of a complete finite volume hyperbolic 3--manifold $M$ on the fundamental group $π_1(M)$. The main result of the paper is an algebraic counterpart of Thurston's hyperbolic Dehn surgery theorem. We also show that peripheral subgroups of $G$ 'almost' have the Congruence Extension Property and the group $G$ is approximated (in an algebraic sense) by its quotients obtain…
We prove that the profinite completion of the fundamental group of a compact 3-manifold $M$ satisfies a Tits alternative: if a closed subgroup $H$ does not contain a free pro-$p$ subgroup for any $p$, then $H$ is virtually soluble, and furthermore of a very particular form. In particular, the profinite completion of the fundamental group of a closed, hyperbolic 3-manifold does not contain a subgroup isomorphic to $\hat{\mathbb{Z}}^2$. This gives a profinite characterization of hyperbolicity among irreducible 3-manifolds. We also characterize Seifert fibred 3-manifolds as precisely those for wh…
We give an explicit construction of a maximal torsion-free finite-index subgroup of a certain type of Coxeter group. The subgroup is constructed as the fundamental group of a finite and non-positively curved polygonal complex. First we consider the special case where the universal cover of this polygonal complex is a hyperbolic building, and we construct finite-index embeddings of the fundamental group into certain cocompact lattices of the building. We show that in this special case the fundamental group is an amalgam of surface groups over free groups. We then consider the general case, and …
We prove that in various natural models of a random quotient of a group, depending on a density parameter, for each hyperbolic group there is some critical density under which a random quotient is still hyperbolic with high probability, whereas above this critical value a random quotient is very probably trivial. We give explicit characterizations of these critical densities for the various models.
We introduce graphical complexes of groups, which can be thought of as a generalisation of Coxeter systems with 1-dimensional nerves. We show that these complexes are strictly developable, and we equip the resulting Basic Construction with three structures of non-positive curvature: piecewise linear CAT(0), C(6) graphical small cancellation, and a systolic one. We then use these structures to establish various properties of the fundamental groups of these complexes, such as biautomaticity and Tits Alternative. We isolate an easily checkable condition implying hyperbolicity of the fundamental g…
For group actions on hyperbolic CAT(0) square complexes, we show that the acylindricity of the action is equivalent to a weaker form of acylindricity phrased purely in terms of stabilisers of points, which has the advantage of being much more tractable for actions on non-locally compact spaces. For group actions on general CAT(0) square complexes, we show that an analogous characterisation holds for the so-called WPD condition. As an application, we study the geometry of generalised Higman groups on at least $5$ generators, the first historical examples of finitely presented infinite groups wi…
