This paper is about geometric and topological properties of a proper CAT(0) space $X$ which is cocompact - i.e. which has a compact generating domain with respect to the full isometry group. It is shown that geodesic segments in $X$ can "almost" be extended to geodesic rays. A basic ingredient of the proof of this geometric statement is the topological theorem that there is a top dimension $d$ in which the compactly supported integral cohomology of $X$ is non-zero. It is also proved that the boundary-at-infinity of $X$ (with the cone topology) has Lebesgue covering dimension $d-1$. It is not assumed that there is any cocompact discrete subgroup of the isometry group of $X$; however, a corollary for that case is that "the dimension of the boundary" is a quasi- isometry invariant of CAT(0) groups. (By contrast, it is known that the topological type of the boundary is not unique for a CAT(0) group.)
We prove that if a geodesically complete $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ space $X$ admits a proper cocompact isometric action of a group, then the Izeki-Nayatani invariant of $X$ is less than $1$. Let $G$ be a finite connected graph, $μ_1 (G)$ be the linear spectral gap of $G$, and $λ_1 (G,X)$ be the nonlinear spectral gap of $G$ with respect to such a $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ space $X$. Then, the result implies that the ratio $λ_1 (G,X) / μ_1 (G)$ is bounded from below by a positive constant which is independent of the graph $G$. It follows that any isometric action of a random group of the graph model on such $X…
We investigate CAT(0) metric spaces whose associated Tits boundary is compact. Prominent examples of such spaces are of course the euclidean ones. However there exist non trivial geodesically complete CAT(0) spaces with compact Tits boundary that are far from being flat. We show that if the isometry group of such a space acts cocompactly, then the space is "as flat as possible", i.e. the boundary minimal subspace must be flat. Our result relies on the existence of hyperbolic isometries, which is a problem itself. We hence add the proof of the following existence proposition: a cocompact CAT(0)…
This paper presents a study of the asymptotic geometry of groups with contracting elements, with emphasis on a subclass of statistically convex-cocompact (SCC) actions. The class of SCC actions includes relatively hyperbolic groups, CAT(0) groups with rank-1 elements and mapping class groups, among others. We exploit an extension lemma to prove that a group with SCC actions contains large free sub-semigroups, has purely exponential growth and contains a class of barrier-free sets with a growth-tight property. Our study produces new results and recovers existing ones for many interesting groups…
Let $X$ be a proper, non-compact CAT(-1) space, and $Γ$ a discrete cocompact subgroup of the isometries of $X$. We compactify the diagonal action of $Γ$ on $X \times X$ considering a domain of the horofunction boundary with respect to the maximum metric.
Non-positively curved spaces admitting a cocompact isometric action of an amenable group are investigated. A classification is established under the assumption that there is no global fixed point at infinity under the full isometry group. The visual boundary is then a spherical building. When the ambient space is geodesically complete, it must be a product of flats, symmetric spaces, biregular trees and Bruhat--Tits buildings. We provide moreover a sufficient condition for a spherical building arising as the visual boundary of a proper CAT(0) space to be Moufang, and deduce that an irreducible…
We show that if X is a piecewise Euclidean 2-complex with a cocompact isometry group, then every 2-quasiflat in X is at finite Hausdorff distance from a subset which is locally flat outside a compact set, and asymptotically conical.
We prove that the class of convex-cocompact Kleinian groups is quasi-isometrically rigid. We also establish that a word hyperbolic group with a planar boundary different from the sphere is virtually a convex-cocompact Kleinian group provided that its boundary has Ahlfors regular conformal dimension strictly less than $2$ or if it acts geometrically on a CAT(0) cube complex.
Let $X$ be a proper CAT($0$) space and $G$ a cocompact group of isometries of $X$ without fixed point at infinity. We prove that if $\partial X$ contains an invariant subset of circumradius $π/2$, then $X$ contains a quasi-dense, closed convex subspace that splits as a product. Adding the assumption that the $G$-action on $X$ is properly discontinuous, we give more conditions that are equivalent to a product splitting. In particular, this occurs if $\partial X$ contains a proper nonempty, closed, invariant, $π$-convex set in $\partial X$; or if some nonempty closed, invariant set in $\partial …
We introduce the notion of coupled link cube complex (CLCC) as a means of constructing interesting cocompactly cubulated groups. CLCCs are defined locally, making them a useful tool when precise control over the links is required. In this paper we study some general properties of CLCCs, such as their (co)homological dimension and criteria for hyperbolicity. Some examples of fundamental groups of CLCCs are RAAGs, RACGs, surface groups and some manifold groups. As immediate applications of our criteria we produce a number of cubulated 3 and 4 manifolds with hyperbolic fundamental group.
We prove the following rank rigidity result for proper CAT(0) spaces with one-dimensional Tits boundaries: Let $Γ$ be a group acting properly discontinuously, cocompactly, and by isometries on such a space $X$. If the Tits diameter of $\partial X$ equals $π$ and $Γ$ does not act minimally on $\partial X$, then $\partial X$ is a spherical building or a spherical join. If $X$ is also geodesically complete, then $X$ is a Euclidean building, higher rank symmetric space, or a nontrivial product. Much of the proof, which involves finding a Tits-closed convex building-like subset of $\partial X$, doe…
In this paper we study geodesic Ptolemy metric spaces $X$ which allow proper and cocompact isometric actions of crystallographic or, more generally, virtual polycyclic groups. We show that $X$ is equivariantly rough isometric to a Euclidean space.
Suppose a group $G$ is relatively hyperbolic with respect to a collection $\PP$ of its subgroups and also acts properly, cocompactly on a $\CAT(0)$ (or $δ$--hyperbolic) space $X$. The relatively hyperbolic structure provides a relative boundary $\partial(G,\PP)$. The $\CAT(0)$ structure provides a different boundary at infinity $\partial X$. In this article, we examine the connection between these two spaces at infinity. In particular, we show that $\partial (G,\PP)$ is $G$--equivariantly homeomorphic to the space obtained from $\partial X$ by identifying the peripheral limit points of the sam…
Let $X=S\times E \times B$ be the metric product of a symmetric space $S$ of noncompact type, a Euclidean space $E$ and a product $B$ of Euclidean buildings. Let $Γ$ be a discrete group acting isometrically and cocompactly on $X$. We determine a family of quasi-isometry invariants for such $Γ$, namely the $k$-dimensional Dehn functions, which measure the difficulty to fill $k$-spheres by $(k+1)$-balls (for $1\leq k\leq \dim\ X-1$). Since the group $Γ$ is quasi-isometric to the associated CAT(0) space $X$, assertions about Dehn functions for $Γ$ are equivalent tothe corresponding results on fil…
Injective metric spaces, or absolute 1-Lipschitz retracts, share a number of properties with CAT(0) spaces. In the 1960es, J. R. Isbell showed that every metric space X has an injective hull E(X). Here it is proved that if X is the vertex set of a connected locally finite graph with a uniform stability property of intervals, then E(X) is a locally finite polyhedral complex with finitely many isometry types of n-cells, isometric to polytopes in l^n_\infty, for each n. This applies to a class of finitely generated groups G, including all word hyperbolic groups and abelian groups, among others. T…
We study those groups that act properly discontinuously, cocompactly, and isometrically on CAT(0) spaces with isolated flats and the Relative Fellow Traveller Property. The groups in question include word hyperbolic CAT(0) groups as well as geometrically finite Kleinian groups and numerous 2-dimensional CAT(0) groups. For such a group we show that there is an intrinsic notion of a quasiconvex subgroup which is equivalent to the inclusion being a quasi-isometric embedding. We also show that the visual boundary of the CAT(0) space is actually an invariant of the group. More generally we show tha…
We show that every cross ratio preserving homeomorphism between boundaries of Hadamard manifolds extends to a continuous map, called circumcenter extension, provided that the manifolds satisfy certain visibility conditions. We show that this map is a rough isometry, whenever the manifolds admit cocompact group actions by isometries and we improve the quasi-isometry constants provided by Biswas in the case of CAT(-1)} spaces. Finally, we provide a sufficient condition for this map to be an isometry in the case of Hadamard surfaces.
We prove that stability -- a strong quasiconvexity property -- pulls back under proper actions on proper metric spaces. This result has several applications, including that convex cocompact subgroups of both mapping class groups and outer automorphism groups of free groups are stable. We also characterize stability in relatively hyperbolic groups whose parabolic subgroups have linear divergence.
