We construct an equivariant version of discrete Morse theory for simplicial complexes endowed with group actions. The key ingredient is a 2-categorical criterion for making acyclic partial matchings on the quotient space compatible with an overlaid complex of groups. We use the discrete flow category of any such compatible matching to build the corresponding Morse complex of groups. Our main result establishes that the development of the Morse complex of groups recovers the original simplicial complex up to equivariant homotopy equivalence.
We formalize an equivariant version of Bestvina-Brady discrete Morse theory, and apply it to Vietoris-Rips complexes in order to exhibit finite universal spaces for proper actions for all asymptotically CAT(0) groups.
We inspect Vietoris-Rips complexes $VR_t(X)$ of certain metric spaces $X$ using a new generalization of Bestvina-Brady discrete Morse theory. Our main result is a pair of metric criteria on $X$, called the Morse Criterion and Link Criterion, that allow us to deduce information about the homotopy types of certain $VR_t(X)$. One application is to topological data analysis, specifically persistence of homotopy type for certain Vietoris-Rips complexes. For example we recover some results of Adamaszek-Adams and Hausmann regarding homotopy types of $VR_t(S^n)$. Another application is to geometric gr…
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…
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 paper we expand the theory of weighted sheaves over posets, and use it to study the local homology of Artin groups. First, we use such theory to relate the homology of classical braid groups with the homology of certain independence complexes of graphs. Then, in the context of discrete Morse theory on weighted sheaves, we introduce a particular class of acyclic matchings. Explicit formulas for the homology of the corresponding Morse complexes are given, in terms of the ranks of the associated incidence matrices. We use such method to perform explicit computations for the new affine cas…
In this paper we exhibit Morse geodesics, often called "hyperbolic directions", in infinite unbounded torsion groups. The groups studied are lacunary hyperbolic groups and constructed using graded small cancellation conditions. In all previously known examples, Morse geodesics were found in groups which also contained Morse elements, infinite order elements whose cyclic subgroup gives a Morse quasi-geodesic. Our result presents the first example of a group which contains Morse geodesics but no Morse elements. In fact, we show that there is an isometrically embedded $7$-regular tree inside such…
We show that if G is an admissible group acting geometrically on a CAT(0) space X, then G is a hierarchically hyperbolic space and with mild assumptions the sublinearly-Morse boundary of the group is a topological model for associated Poisson boundaries .
We present a discrete Morse-theoretic method for proving that a regular CW complex is homeomorphic to a sphere. We use this method to define bisimplices, the cells of a class of regular CW complexes we call bisimplicial complexes. The 1-skeleta of bisimplices are complete bipartite graphs making them suitable in constructing higher dimensional skeleta for bipartite graphs. We show that the flag bisimplicial completion of a finite bipartite bi-dismantlable graph is collapsible. We use this to show that the flag bisimplicial completion of a quadric complex is contractible and to construct a comp…
We show that the Morse boundary of a right-angled Coxeter group may contain embedded circles that do not arise as the boundary of a Morse Fuchsian subgroup visible in the defining graph.
We introduce self-similar algebras and groups closely related to the Thue-Morse sequence, and begin their investigation by describing a character on them, the "spread" character.
Let a finitely generated group $G$ split as a graph of groups. If edge groups are undistorted and do not contribute to the Morse boundary $\partial_MG$, we show that every connected component of $\partial_MG$ with at least two points originates from the Morse boundary of a vertex group. Under stronger assumptions on the edge groups (such as wideness in the sense of Druţu-Sapir), we show that Morse boundaries of vertex groups are topologically embedded in $\partial_MG$.
We generalize a result of Paulin on the Gromov boundary of hyperbolic groups to the Morse boundary of proper, maximal hierarchically hyperbolic spaces admitting cocompact group actions by isometries. Namely we show that if the Morse boundaries of two such spaces each contain at least three points, then the spaces are quasi-isometric if and only if there exists a 2-stable, quasi-möbius homeomorphism between their Morse boundaries. Our result extends a recent result of Charney-Murray, who prove such a classification for CAT(0) groups, and is new for mapping class groups and the fundamental group…
For a finitely generated group, there are two recent generalizations of the notion of a quasiconvex subgroup of a word-hyperbolic group, namely a stable subgroup and a Morse or strongly quasiconvex subgroup. Durham and Taylor defined stability and proved stability is equivalent to convex cocompactness in mapping class groups. Another natural generalization of quasiconvexity is given by the notion of a Morse or strongly quasiconvex subgroup of a finitely generated group, studied recently by Tran and Genevois. In general, a subgroup is stable if and only if the subgroup is Morse and hyperbolic. …
The Morse boundary of a proper geodesic metric space is designed to encode hypberbolic-like behavior in the space. A key property of this boundary is that a quasi-isometry between two such spaces induces a homeomorphism on their Morse boundaries. In this paper we investigate when the converse holds. We prove that for cocompact CAT(0) spaces, a homeomorphism of Morse boundaries is induced by a quasi-isometry if and only if the homeomorphism is quasi-mobius and 2-stable.
We prove that Morse local-to-global groups grow exponentially faster than their infinite index stable subgroups. This generalizes a result of Dahmani, Futer, and Wise in the context of quasi-convex subgroups of hyperbolic groups to a broad class of groups that contains the mapping class group, CAT(0) groups, and the fundamental groups of closed 3-manifolds. To accomplish this, we develop a theory of automatic structures on Morse geodesics in Morse local-to-global groups. Other applications of these automatic structures include a description of stable subgroups in terms of regular languages, ra…
Call a group action on a topological space \emph{biminimal} if for any points $x,y\in X$ there exists a group element taking $x$ arbitrarily close to $y$ and whose inverse takes $y$ arbitrarily close to $x$. A symbolic encoding of the Thue-Morse dynamical system is given, in terms of $ω$-automata. It is used to prove that the Thue-Morse dynamical system is minimal but not biminimal. The $ω$-automata also establish a link between Nekrashevych's presentation of limit spaces and solenoids with a construction described by Vershik and Solomyak.
We study Morse subgroups and Morse boundaries of random right-angled Coxeter groups in the Erdős--Rényi model. We show that at densities below $\left(\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}}-ε\right)\sqrt{\frac{\log{n}}{n}}$ random right-angled Coxeter groups almost surely have Morse hyperbolic surface subgroups. This implies their Morse boundaries contain embedded circles and they cannot be quasi-isometric to a right-angled Artin group. Further, at densities above $\left(\sqrt{\frac{1}{2}}+ε\right)\sqrt{\frac{\log{n}}{n}}$ we show that, almost surely, the hyperbolic Morse special subgroups of a random right-angled…
We construct a one-to-one continuous map from the Morse boundary of a hierarchically hyperbolic group to its Martin boundary. This construction is based on deviation inequalities generalizing Ancona's work on hyperbolic groups. This provides a possibly new metrizable topology on the Morse boundary of such groups. We also prove that the Morse boundary has measure 0 with respect to the harmonic measure unless the group is hyperbolic.
