We give a simple proof of the finite presentation of Sela's limit groups by using free actions on R^n-trees. We first prove that Sela's limit groups do have a free action on an R^n-tree. We then prove that a finitely generated group having a free action on an R^n-tree can be obtained from free abelian groups and surface groups by a finite sequence of free products and amalgamations over cyclic groups. As a corollary, such a group is finitely presented, has a finite classifying space, its abelian subgroups are finitely generated and contains only finitely many conjugacy classes of non-cyclic maximal abelian subgroups.
Groups acting freely on Z^n-trees (Z^n-free groups) play a key role in the study of non-archimedean group actions. Following Stallings' ideas, we develop graph-theoretic techniques to investigate subgroup structure of Z^n-free groups. As an immediate application of the presented method, we give an effective solution to the Uniform Membership Problem and the Power Problem in Z^n-free groups.
We study blocks with an abelian defect group and a cyclic inertial quotient acting freely but not transitively. We prove that when p=2, such blocks are inertial, i.e. basic Morita equivalent to their Brauer correspondent. Together with a result of the second author on Singer cycle actions on homocyclic defect groups, this completes the classification of 2-blocks with a cyclic inertial quotient acting freely on an abelian defect group.
We obtain a number of finiteness results for groups acting on Gromov-hyperbolic spaces. In particular we show that a torsion-free locally quasiconvex hyperbolic group has only finitely many conjugacy classes of $n$-generated one-ended subgroups. We also show that the rank problem is solvable for the class of torsion-free locally quasiconvex hyperbolic groups (even though it is unsolvable for the class of all torsion-free hyperbolic groups). We apply our results to 3-manifold groups. Namely, suppose $G$ is the fundamental group of a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold fibering over a circle and suppos…
We study the class of groups generated by automata that act essentially freely on the boundary of a rooted tree. In the process we establish and discuss some general tools for determining if a group belongs to this class, and explore the connections of this class to the classes of just-infinite and scale-invariant groups. Our main application is a complete classification of groups generated by 3-state automata over 2-letter alphabet that are in this class.
We introduce certain directed multigraphs with extra structure, called Weyl graphs, which model quotients of Tits buildings by type-preserving chamber-free group actions. Their advantage over complexes of groups, which are often used for the CAT(0) Davis realization of buildings, is that Weyl graphs exploit the ultimate combinatorial W-metric structure of buildings. Weyl graphs generalize Tits's chambers systems of type M by allowing 2-residues to be quotients of generalized polygons by flag-free group actions, and Weyl graphs are easily constructed by amalgamating such quotients. We develop c…
A group is called $Λ$-free if it has a free Lyndon length function in an ordered abelian group $Λ$, which is equivalent to having a free isometric action on a $Λ$-tree. A group has a regular free length function in $Λ$ if and only if it has a free isometric action on a $Λ$-tree so that all branch points belong to the orbit of the base point. In this paper we prove that every finitely presented $Λ$-free group $G$ can be embedded into a finitely presented group with a regular free length function in $Λ$ so that the length function on $G$ is preserved by the embedding. Next, we prove that every f…
We prove an acylindrical accessibility theorem for finitely generated groups acting on $\mathbf R$-trees. Namely, we show that if $G$ is a freely indecomposable non-cyclic $k$-generated group acting minimally and $M$-acylindrically on an $\mathbf R$-tree $X$ then for any $ε>0$ there is a finite subtree $Y_ε\subseteq X$ of measure at most $2M(k-1)+ε$ such that $GY_ε=X$. This generalizes theorems of Z.Sela and T.Delzant about actions on simplicial trees.
It is shown that for any action of a finitely presented group $G$ on an $\R$-tree, there is a decomposition of $G$ as the fundamental group of a graph of groups related to this action. If the action of $G$ on $T$ is non-trivial, i.e. there is no global fixed point, then $G$ has a non-trivial action on a simplcial $\R $-tree.
Tree-graded spaces are generalizations of R-trees. They appear as asymptotic cones of groups (when the cones have cut points). Since many questions about endomorphisms and automorphisms of groups, solving equations over groups, studying embeddings of a group into another group, etc. lead to actions of groups on the asymptotic cones, it is natural to consider actions of groups on tree-graded spaces. We develop a theory of such actions which generalizes the well known theory of groups acting on R-trees. As applications of our theory, we describe, in particular, relatively hyperbolic groups with …
We consider actions of completely metrisable groups on simplicial trees in the context of the Bass--Serre theory. Our main result characterises continuity of the amplitude function corresponding to a given action. Under fairly mild conditions on a completely metrisable group $G$, namely, that the set of elements generating a non-discrete or finite subgroup is somewhere dense, we show that in any decomposition as a free product with amalgamation, $G=A\ast_CB$, the amalgamated groups $A$, $B$ and $C$ are open in $G$.
We study superstable groups acting on trees. We prove that an action of an $ω$-stable group on a simplicial tree is trivial. This shows that an HNN-extension or a nontrivial free product with amalgamation is not $ω$-stable. It is also shown that if $G$ is a superstable group acting nontrivially on a $Λ$-tree, where $Λ=\mathbb Z$ or $Λ=\mathbb R$, and if $G$ is either $α$-connected and $Λ=\mathbb Z$, or if the action is irreducible, then $G$ interprets a simple group having a nontrivial action on a $Λ$-tree. In particular if $G$ is superstable and splits as $G=G_1*_AG_2$, with the index of $A$ …
Given an action of a group G on a topological space X, we establish a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a free subgroup F of rank 2 of G acting properly discontinuously on at least one nonempty, open, F-invariant subspace of X. In the case of a discrete topology (group action on a set X), the condition simply detects free subgroups of rank 2 acting freely on some orbit.
We provide new examples of acylindrically hyperbolic groups arising from actions on simplicial trees. In particular, we consider amalgamated products and HNN-extensions, 1-relator groups, automorphism groups of polynomial algebras, 3-manifold groups and graph products. Acylindrical hyperbolicity is then used to obtain some results about the algebraic structure, analytic properties and measure equivalence rigidity of groups from these classes.
We generalise results of Thomas, Allcock, Thom-Petersen, and Kar-Niblo to the first $\ell^2$-Betti number of quotients of certain groups acting on trees by subgroups with free actions on the edge sets of the graphs.
A finitely generated group $G$ acting on a tree with infinite cyclic edge and vertex stabilizers is called a generalized Baumslag--Solitar group ($GBS$ group). We prove that a 1-knot group $G$ is $GBS$ group iff $G$ is a torus-knot group and describe all n-knot GBS groups for $n\geqslant 3$.
We introduce a class of spaces, called real cubings, and study the stucture of groups acting nicely on these spaces. Just as cubings are a natural generalisation of simplicial trees, real cubings can be regarded as a natural generalisation of real trees. Our main result states that a finitely generated group $G$ acts nicely (essentially freely and co-specially) on a real cubing if and only if it is a subgroup of a graph tower (a higher dimensional generalisation of $ω$-residually free towers and NTQ-groups). It follows that $G$ acts freely, essentially freely and co-specially on a real cubing …
This paper further develops the theory of arbitrary semigroups acting on trees via elliptic mappings. A key tool is the Lyndon-Chiswell length function L for the semigroup S which allows one to construct a tree T and an action of S on T via elliptic maps. Improving on previous results, the length function of the action will also be L.
We establish a sharp sufficient condition for groups acting on trees to be highly transitive when the action on the tree is minimal of general type. This gives new examples of highly transitive groups, including icc non-solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups, thus answering a question of Hull and Osin.
Let T be a k-regular tree (k>2) and A its automorphism group. We analyze a generic finitely generated subgroup Gamma of A. We show that Gamma is free and establish a trichotomy on the closure of Gamma: it is either discrete, compact or has index at most 2 in A.
We examine the question of which finitely generated groups act properly on a finite product of simplicial trees, considering both arbitrary trees and where all trees are locally finite. In the second case we present evidence in favour of hyperbolic surface groups having such an action. However we also present evidence that many RAAGs do not admit such an action and we give an example of a virtually special group which does not act properly preserving factors on any finite product of locally finite trees, even though it does so on a product of three trees without the local finiteness condition.
This is the first paper in a series of three where we take on the unified theory of non-Archimedean group actions, length functions and infinite words. Our main goal is to show that group actions on Z^n-trees give one a powerful tool to study groups. All finitely generated groups acting freely on -trees also act freely on some Z^n-trees, but the latter ones form a much larger class. The natural effectiveness of all constructions for $Z^n-actions (which is not the case for R-trees) comes along with a robust algorithmic theory. In this paper we describe the algebraic structure of finitely genera…
We investigate the profinite completions of a certain family of groups acting on trees. It turns out that for some of the groups considered, the completions coincide with the closures of the groups in the full group of tree automorphisms. However, we introduce an infinite series of groups for which that is not so, and describe the kernels of natural homomorphisms of the profinite completions onto the aforementioned closures of respective groups.
We introduce two families of examples of groups acting on trees, one consisting of group amalgamations and the other consisting of HNN-extensions, motivated by the problems of $C^*$-simplicity and unique trace property. Moreover, we prove that our examples are not inner amenable and identify a relatively large, simple, normal subgroup in each one.
We show that if a group $G$ acting faithfully on a rooted tree $T$ has a free subgroup, then either there exists a point $w$ of the boundary $\partial T$ and a free subgroup of $G$ with trivial stabilizer of $w$, or there exists $w\in\partial T$ and a free subgroup of $G$ fixing $w$ and acting faithfully on arbitrarily small neighborhoods of $w$. This can be used to prove absence of free subgroups for different known classes of groups. For instance, we prove that iterated monodromy groups of expanding coverings have no free subgroups and give another proof of a theorem by S. Sidki.
We prove the following theorem: Let $π$ be the fundamental group of a finite graph of groups with finitely generated vertex groups $G_v$ having asdim $G_v\le n$ for all vertices $v$. Then asdim$π\le n+1$. This gives the best possible estimate for the asymptotic dimension of an HNN extension and the amalgamated product.
We study the positive theory of groups acting on trees and show that under the presence of weak small cancellation elements, the positive theory of the group is trivial, i.e. coincides with the positive theory of a non-abelian free group. Our results apply to a wide class of groups, including non-virtually solvable fundamental groups of $3$-manifold groups, generalised Baumslag-Solitar groups and almost all one-relator groups and graph products of groups. It follows that groups in the class satisfy a number of algebraic properties: for instance, their verbal subgroups have infinite width and, …
We describe a simple criterion for showing that a group has Serre's property FA. By exhibiting a certain pattern of finite subgroups, we show that this criterion is satisfied by Aut(F_n) and SL(n,Z) when n>=3.
Let $\mathcal{T}_{q+1}$ be the $(q+1)$-regular tree and let $G$ be a group of automorphisms acting transitively on the vertices and on the boundary of $\mathcal{T}_{q+1}$. We give an upper bound for the growth of cocycles with values in any unitary representation of the group $G$. This bound is optimal by projecting the Haagerup cocycle onto an appropriate subspace of $\ell^{2}(E)$. We also obtain a description of functions conditionally of negative type which are unbounded.
We investigate a family of groups acting on a regular tree, defined by prescribing the local action almost everywhere. We study lattices in these groups and give examples of compactly generated simple groups of finite asymptotic dimension (actually one) not containing lattices. We also obtain examples of simple groups with simple lattices, and we prove the existence of (infinitely many) finitely generated simple groups of asymptotic dimension one. We also prove various properties of these groups, including the existence of a proper action on a CAT(0) cube complex.
Based on the work of Abercrombie, Barnea and Shalev gave an explicit formula for the Hausdorff dimension of a group acting on a rooted tree. We focus here on the binary tree T. Abert and Virag showed that there exist finitely generated (but not necessarily level-transitive) subgroups of AutT of arbitrary dimension in [0,1]. In this article we explicitly compute the Hausdorff dimension of the level-transitive spinal groups. We then show examples of 3-generated spinal groups which have transcendental Hausdroff dimension, and exhibit a construction of 2-generated groups whose Hausdorff dimension …
We propose a new look at the Julg-Valette theorem on K-theoretic amenability for groups operating on trees. The main tool is a generalization of a construction of uniformly bounded representations of the free groups due to Pytlik and Szwarc.
We construct new examples of groups with cohomological dimension 2 and geometric dimension 3 with respect to the families of finite subgroups, virtually abelian groups of bounded rank, and the family of virtually poly-cyclic subgroups. Our main ingredients are the examples constructed by Brady-Leary-Nucinckis and Fluch-Leary, and Bass-Serre theory.
In our paper arXiv:1310.6289, we stated that acylindrical hyperbolicity of a group is invariant under commensurability up to finite kernels. Unfortunately, the proof of this fact contained a gap. The goal of this erratum is to point out the gap and to correct the statements and proofs of results of arXiv:1310.6289 and the subsequent paper arXiv:1501.03066 affected by it.
This paper generalizes Bass' work on zeta functions for uniform tree lattices. Using the theory of von Neumann algebras, machinery is developed to define the zeta function of a discrete group of automorphisms of a bounded degree tree. The main theorems relate the zeta function to determinants of operators defined on edges or vertices of the tree. A zeta function associated to a non-uniform tree lattice with appropriate Hilbert representation is defined. Zeta functions are defined for infinite graphs with a cocompact or finite covolume group action.
We construct the first example of a finitely generated group which has Serre's property (FA) (i.e., whenever it acts on a simplicial tree it fixes a vertex), but admits a fixed point-free action on an $\mathbb{R}$-tree with finite arc stabilizers. We also give a short and elementary construction of finitely generated groups that have property (FA) but do not have (F$\mathbb{R}$).
We study under which condition an amalgamated free product or an HNN-extension over a finite subgroup admits an amenable, transitive and faithful action on an infinite countable set. We show that such an action exists if the initial groups admit an amenable and almost free action with infinite orbits (e.g. virtually free groups or infinite amenable groups). Our result relies on the Baire category Theorem. We extend the result to groups acting on trees.
We study non-ascending HNN extensions acting on their Bass-Serre trees, and characterize C*-simplicity and the unique trace property by means of the kernel and quasi-kernels of the HNN extension in question. We also present a concrete example of an HNN extension that is a new example of a group that is not C*-simple but does have the unique trace property. Additionally, we include certain more general results, mostly based on previous work of various authors, concerning C*-simplicity of groups admitting extreme boundary actions, and in particular, groups acting on trees.
We present an algorithm to decide whether or not a finitely generated subgroup of the isometry group of a locally finite simplicial tree is both discrete and free. The correctness of this algorithm relies on the following conjecture: every `minimal' $n$-tuple of isometries of a simplicial tree either contains an elliptic element or satisfies the hypotheses of the Ping Pong Lemma. We prove this conjecture for $n=2,3$, and show that it implies a generalisation of Ihara's Theorem.
In this note, we give new examples of type I groups generalizing a previous result of Ol'shanskii. More precisely, we prove that all closed non-compact subgroups of Aut(T_d) acting transitively on the vertices and on the boundary of a d-regular tree and satisfying Tits' independence property are type I groups. We claim no originality as we use standard ingredients: the polar decomposition of those groups and the admissibility of all their irreducible unitary representations.
Let $T$ be a locally finite tree without vertices of degree $1$. We show that among the closed subgroups of $\mathrm{Aut}(T)$ acting with a bounded number of orbits, the Chabauty-closure of the set of topologically simple groups is the set of groups without proper open subgroup of finite index. Moreover, if all vertices of $T$ have degree $\geq 3$, then the set of isomorphism classes of topologically simple closed subgroups of $\mathrm{Aut}(T)$ acting doubly transitively on $\partial T$ carries a natural compact Hausdorff topology inherited from Chabauty. Some of our considerations are valid i…
Let $G$ be a group acting on a tree $T$ with finite edge stabilizers of bounded order. We provide, in some very interesting cases, upper bounds for the complexity of the intersection $H\cap K$ of two tame subgroups $H$ and $K$ of $G$ in terms of the complexities of $H$ and $K$. In particular, we obtain bounds for the Kurosh rank $Kr(H\cap K)$ of the intersection in terms of Kurosh ranks $Kr(H)$ and $Kr(K)$, in the case where $H$ and $K$ act freely on the edges of $T$.
Let G be a finitely generated infinite pro-p group acting on a pro-p tree such that the restriction of the action to some open subgroup is free. Then we prove that G splits as a pro-p amalgamated product or as a pro-p HNN-extension over an edge stabilizer. Using this result we prove under certain conditions that free pro-p products with procyclic amalgamation inherit from its free factors the property of each 2-generated subgroup being free pro-p. This generalizes known pro-p results, as well as some pro-p analogs of classical results in abstract combinatorial group theory.
We explore the structure of the p-adic automorphism group Gamma of the infinite rooted regular tree. We determine the asymptotic order of a typical element, answering an old question of Turan. We initiate the study of a general dimension theory of groups acting on rooted trees. We describe the relationship between dimension and other properties of groups such as solvability, existence of dense free subgroups and the normal subgroup structure. We show that subgroups of Gamma generated by three random elements are full-dimensional and that there exist finitely generated subgroups of arbitrary di…
Let $T$ be a tree and $e$ an edge in $T$. If $C$ is a component of $T\setminus e$ and both $C$ and its complement are infinite we say that $C$ is a half-tree. The main result of this paper is that if $G$ is a closed subgroup of the automorphism group of $T$ and $G$ leaves no non-trivial subtree invariant and fixes no end of $T$ then the subgroup generated by the pointwise stabilizers of half-trees is topologically simple. This result is used to derive analogues of recent results of Caprace and De Medts (2011) and it is also applied in the study of the full automorphism group of a locally finit…
We show that a group acting on a non-trivial tree with finite edge stabilizers and icc vertex stabilizers admits a faithful and highly transitive action on an infinite countable set. This result is actually true for infinite vertex stabilizers and some more general, finite of infinite, edge stabilizers that we call highly core-free. We study the notion of highly core-free subgroups and give some examples. In the case of amalgamated free products over highly core-free subgroups and HNN extensions with highly core-free base groups we obtain a genericity result for faithful and highly transitive …
In this paper we study the action of the fundamental group of a finite metric graph on its universal covering tree. We assume the graph is finite, connected and the degree of each vertex is at least three. Further, we assume an irrationality condition on the edge lengths. We obtain an asymptotic for the number of elements in a fixed conjugacy class for which the associated displacement of a given base vertex in the universal covering tree is at most $T$. Under a mild extra assumption we also obtain a polynomial error term.
