We generalize Bestvina's notion of a $\mathcal{Z}$-boundary for a group to that of a "coarse $\mathcal{Z}$-boundary." We show that established theorems about $\mathcal{Z}$-boundaries carry over nicely to the more general theory, and that some wished-for properties of $\mathcal{Z}$-boundaries become theorems when applied to coarse $\mathcal{Z}$-boundaries. Most notably, the property of admitting a coarse $\mathcal{Z}$-boundary is a pure quasi-isometry invariant. In the process, we streamline both new and existing definitions by introducing the notion of a "model $\mathcal{Z}$-geometry." In accordance with the existing theory, we also develop an equivariant version of the above -- that of a "coarse $E\mathcal{Z}$-boundary."
A $\mathcal{Z}$-structure on a group $G$ was introduced by Bestvina in order to extend the notion of a group boundary beyond the realm of CAT(0) and hyperbolic groups. A refinement of this notion, introduced by Farrell and Lafont, includes a $G$-equivariance requirement, and is known as an $\mathcal{EZ}$-structure. The general questions of which groups admit $\mathcal{Z}$- or $\mathcal{EZ}$-structures remain open. In this paper we add to the current knowledge by showing that all Baumslag-Solitar groups admit $\mathcal{EZ}$-structures and all generalized Baumslag-Solitar groups admit $\mathcal{…
We introduce a coarse flow space for relatively hyperbolic groups and use it to verify a regularity condition for the action of relatively hyperbolic groups on their boundaries. As an application the Farrell-Jones Conjecture for relatively hyperbolic groups can be reduced to the peripheral subgroups (up to index 2 overgroups in the L-theory case).
Let $\mathcal M_g$ denote the moduli space of compact Riemann surfaces of genus $g$ and let $\mathcal A_g$ be the space of principally polarized abelian varieties of (complex) dimension $g$. Let $J:\mathcal M_g\longrightarrow \mathcal A_g$ be the map which associates to a Riemann surface its Jacobian. The map $J$ is injective, and the image $J(\mathcal M_g)$ is contained in a proper subvariety of $\mathcal A_g$ when $g\geq 4$. The classical and long-studied Schottky problem is to characterize the Jacobian locus $\mathcal J_g:=J(\mathcal M_g)$ in $\mathcal A_g$. In this paper we adress a large …
In this paper, we develop a theory on the degenerations of Blaschke products $\mathcal{B}_d$ to study the boundaries of hyperbolic components. We give a combinatorial classification of geometrically finite polynomials on the boundary of the main hyperbolic component $\mathcal{H}_d$ containing $z^d$. We show the closure $\overline{\mathcal{H}_d}$ is not a topological manifold with boundary for $d\geq 4$ by constructing self-bumps on its boundary.
For all systolic groups we construct boundaries which are EZ--structures. This implies the Novikov conjecture for torsion--free systolic groups. The boundary is constructed via a system of distinguished geodesics in a systolic complex, which we prove to have coarsely similar properties to geodesics in CAT(0) spaces.
Suppose a finitely generated group $G$ is hyperbolic relative to $\mathcal P$ a set of proper finitely generated subgroups of $G$. Established results in the literature imply that a "visual" metric on $\partial (G,\mathcal P)$ is "linearly connected" if and only if the boundary $\partial (G,\mathcal P)$ has no cut point. Our goal is to produce linearly connected metrics on $\partial (G,\mathcal P)$ that are "piecewise" visual when $\partial (G,\mathcal P)$ contains cut points. %Visual metrics for $\partial (G,\mathcal P)$ are tightly linked to inner products of geodesic rays in "cusped" spaces…
Given a countable group $G$ splitting as a free product $G=G_1\ast\dots\ast G_k\ast F_N$, we establish classification results for subgroups of the group $Out(G,\mathcal{F})$ of all outer automorphisms of $G$ that preserve the conjugacy classes of each $G_i$. We show that every finitely generated subgroup $H\subseteq Out(G,\mathcal{F})$ either contains a relatively fully irreducible automorphism, or else it virtually preserves the conjugacy class of a proper free factor relative to the decomposition (the finite generation hypothesis on $H$ can be dropped for $G=F_N$, or more generally when $G$ …
For a discrete metric space (or more generally a large scale space) $X$ and an action of a group $G$ on $X$ by coarse equivalences, we define a type of coarse quotient space $X_G$, which agrees up to coarse equivalence with the orbit space $X/G$ when $G$ is finite. We then restrict our attention to what we call coarsely discontinuous actions and show that for such actions the group $G$ can be recovered as an appropriately defined automorphism group $\mathsf{Aut}(X/X_G)$ when $X$ satisfies a large scale connectedness condition. We show that for a coarsely discontinuous action of a countable gro…
We study the Bowditch boundaries of relatively hyperbolic group pairs, focusing on the case where there are no cut points. We show that if $(G,\mathcal{P})$ is a rigid relatively hyperbolic group pair whose boundary embeds in $S^2$, then the action on the boundary extends to a convergence group action on $S^2$. More generally, if the boundary is connected and planar with no cut points, we show that every element of $\mathcal{P}$ is virtually a surface group. This conclusion is consistent with the conjecture that such a group $G$ is virtually Kleinian. We give numerous examples to show the nece…
We show that for $n \geq 3$, there are torsion-free CAT(0) groups with visual boundaries that embed into $S^n$ but which are not virtually the fundamental group of a compact aspherical $n+1$-manifold. The groups are the CAT(0) and not bi-automatic groups constructed previously by Leary and Minasyan. The obstruction comes from analyzing certain cyclic orders on the boundary of the Bass-Serre tree, in the same manner as Kapovich-Kleiner ruled out actions of Baumslag-Solitar groups on coarse $\mathrm{PD}(3)$ spaces.
Let $Γ$ be a connected, triangle-free, planar graph with at least five vertices that has no separating vertices or edges. If the graph $Γ$ is $\mathcal{CFS}$, we prove that the right-angled Coxeter group $G_Γ$ is virtually a Seifert manifold group or virtually a graph manifold group and we give a complete quasi-isometry classification of these such groups. Otherwise, we prove that $G_Γ$ is hyperbolic relative to a collection of $\mathcal{CFS}$ right-angled Coxeter subgroups of $G_Γ$. Consequently, the divergence of $G_Γ$ is linear, or quadratic, or exponential. We also generalize right-angled …
Let $T:= T(A, {\mathcal D})$ be a disk-like self-affine tile generated by an integral expanding matrix $A$ and a consecutive collinear digit set ${\mathcal D}$, and let $f(x)=x^{2}+px+q$ be the characteristic polynomial of $A$. In the paper, we identify the boundary $\partial T$ with a sofic system by constructing a neighbor graph and derive equivalent conditions for the pair $(A,{\mathcal D})$ to be a number system. Moreover, by using the graph-directed construction and a device of pseudo-norm $ω$, we find the generalized Hausdorff dimension $\dim_H^ω (\partial T)=2\log ρ(M)/\log |q|$ where $…
Let $\mathcal{N}_g$ be the mapping class group of a non-orientable closed surface. We prove that the proper cohomological dimension, the proper geometric dimension, and the virtual cohomological dimension of $\mathcal{N}_g$ are equal whenever $g\neq 4,5$. In particular, there exists a model for the classifying space of $\mathcal{N}_g$ for proper actions of dimension $\mathrm{vcd}(\mathcal{N}_g)=2g-5$. Similar results are obtained for the mapping class group of a non-orientable surface with boundaries and possibly punctures, and for the pure mapping class group of a non-orientable surface with …
