A generalized triangle group is a group that can be presented in the form $G = < x,y | x^p=y^q=w(x,y)^r=1>$, where $p,q,r\geq 2$ and $w(x,y)$ is a cyclically reduced word of length at least 2 in the free product $\Z_p*\Z_q=< x,y | x^p=y^q=1>$. Rosenberger has conjectured that every generalized triangle group $G$ satisfies the Tits alternative. It is known that the conjecture holds except possibly when the triple $(p,q,r)$ is one of $(2,3,2), (2,4,2),(2,5,2),(3,3,2),(3,4,2)$, or $(3,5,2)$. In this paper we show that the Tits alternative holds in the case $(p,q,r)=(3,4,2)$.
Triangles of groups have been introduced by Gersten and Stallings. They are, roughly speaking, a generalisation of the amalgamated free product of two groups and occur in the framework of Corson diagrams. First, we prove an intersection theorem for Corson diagrams. Then, we focus on triangles of groups. It has been shown by Howie and Kopteva that the colimit of a hyperbolic triangle of groups contains a non-abelian free subgroup. We give two natural conditions, each of which ensures that the colimit of a non-spherical triangle of groups either contains a non-abelian free subgroup or is virtual…
Pride groups, or ``groups given by presentations in which each defining relator involves at most two types of generators'', include Coxeter groups, Artin groups, triangles of groups, and Vinberg's groups defined by periodic paired relations. We show that every non-spherical Pride group that is not a triangle of groups satisfies the Tits alternative.
It is conjectured that the central quotient of every irreducible Artin group is either virtually cyclic or acylindrically hyperbolic. We prove this conjecture for Artin groups associated to triangle-free graphs and Artin groups of large type associated to cones over square-free bipartite graphs. In fact, we treat Artin groups that are known to be CAT(0) groups by a result of Brady and McCammond.
Given a group action on a finite-dimensional CAT(0) cube complex, we give a simple criterion phrased purely in terms of cube stabilisers that ensures that the group satisfies the strong Tits alternative, provided that each vertex stabiliser satisfies the strong Tits alternative. We use it to prove that all Artin groups of type FC satisfy the strong Tits alternative.
These notes contain results concerning uniform exponential growth which were obtained in collaborations with E. Breuillard and A. Salehi-Golsefidy, mostly during 2005, improving Eskin-Mozes-Oh theorem \cite{EMO}, as well as a uniform uniform version of Tits alternative improving \cite{uti}.
Let k be a local field, and G a linear group over k. We prove that either G contains a relatively open solvable subgroup, or it contains a relatively dense free subgroup. This result has applications in dynamics, Riemannian foliations and profinite groups.
We present an algorithm that decides whether a finitely generated linear group over an infinite field is solvable-by-finite: a computationally effective version of the Tits alternative. We also give algorithms to decide whether the group is nilpotent-by-finite, abelian-by-finite, or central-by-finite. Our algorithms have been implemented in MAGMA and are publicly available.
We prove a Tits alternative for topological full groups of minimal actions of finitely generated groups. On the one hand, we show that topological full groups of minimal actions of virtually cyclic groups are amenable. By doing so, we generalize the result of Juschenko and Monod for $\mathbf{Z}$-actions. On the other hand, when a finitely generated group $G$ is not virtually cyclic, then we construct a minimal free action of $G$ on a Cantor space such that the topological full group contains a non-abelian free group.
Let $X$ be a surface, possibly with boundary. Suppose it has infinite genus or infinitely many punctures, or a closed subset which is a disk with a Cantor set removed from its interior. For example, $X$ could be any surface of infinite type with only finitely many boundary components. We prove that the mapping class group of $X$ does not satisfy the Tits Alternative. That is, Map$(X)$ contains a finitely generated subgroup that is not virtually solvable and contains no nonabelian free group.
We prove the Tits Alternative for groups acting on $2$-dimensional "recurrent" complexes with uniformly bounded cell stabilisers. This class of complexes includes, among others: $2$-dimensional Euclidean buildings, $2$-dimensional systolic complexes, $B(6)$-small cancellation complexes, and standard Cayley complexes for Artin groups of extra-large type. In the appendix written jointly with Jon McCammond we extend the result to a class of $2$-dimensional Artin groups containing all large-type Artin groups.
We introduce the notion of a probabilistic identity of a residually finite group. We prove that a finitely generated linear group satisfies a probabilistic identity if and only if it is virtually solvable. As an application, we prove a probabilistic variant of the Tits alternative: let G be the profinite completion of a finitely generated linear group. Then either G is virtually solvable, or for any positive integer n, with probability one, n independent, uniformly distributed elements of G freely generate a free subgroup of G of rank n.
We show that for every integer $d$, there is a constant $N(d)$ such that if $K$ is any field and $F$ is a finite subset of $GL_d(K)$, which generates a non amenable subgroup, then $F^{N(d)}$ contains two elements, which freely generate a non abelian free subgroup. This improves the original statement of the Tits alternative. It also implies a growth gap and a co-growth gap for non-amenable linear groups, and has consequences about the girth and uniform expansion of small sets in finite subgroups of $GL_d(\Bbb{F}_q)$ as well as other diophantine properties of non-discrete subgroups of Lie group…
We discuss various types of Tits Alternative for subgroups of graph products of groups, and prove that, under some natural conditions, a graph product of groups satisfies a given form of Tits Alternative if and only if each vertex group satisfies this alternative. As a corollary, we show that every finitely generated subgroup of a graph product of virtually solvable groups is either virtually solvable or large. As another corollary, we prove that every non-abelian subgroup of a right angled Artin group has an epimorphism onto the free group of rank 2. In the course of the paper we develop the …
The classification of Curtis-Tits amalgams with {connected}, triangle free, simply-laced diagram over a field of size at least $4$ was completed in~\cite{BloHof2014b}. Orientable amalgams are those arising from applying the Curtis-Tits theorem to groups of Kac-Moody type, and indeed, their universal completions are central extensions of those groups of Kac-Moody type. The paper~\cite{BloHof2014a} exhibits concrete (matrix) groups as completions for all Curtis-Tits amalgams with diagram $\widetilde{A}_{n-1}$. For non-orientable amalgams these groups are symmetry groups of certain unitary forms …
Let $G=G_1\ast\dots\ast G_k\ast F$ be a countable group which splits as a free product, where all groups $G_i$ are freely indecomposable and not isomorphic to $\mathbb{Z}$, and $F$ is a finitely generated free group. If for all $i\in\{1,\dots,k\}$, both $G_i$ and its outer automorphism group $\text{Out}(G_i)$ satisfy the Tits alternative, then $\text{Out}(G)$ satisfies the Tits alternative. As an application, we prove that the Tits alternative holds for outer automorphism groups of right-angled Artin groups, and of torsion-free groups that are hyperbolic relative to a finite family of virtuall…
In this note we show that many subgroups of mapping class groups of infinite-type surfaces without boundary have trivial centers, including all normal subgroups. Using similar techniques, we show that every nontrivial normal subgroup of a big mapping class group contains a nonabelian free group. In contrast, we show that no big mapping class group satisfies the strong Tits alternative enjoyed by finite-type mapping class groups. We also give examples of big mapping class groups that fail to satisfy even the classical Tits alternative and give a proof that every countable group appears as a sub…
We show, using Wise's equitable sets criterion, that every tubular free by cyclic group acts freely on a CAT(0) cube complex. We also show that these groups have a finite index subgroup satisfying the strongest Tits alternative, which means that every subgroup either surjects a non abelian free group or is torsion free abelian. In particular the Gersten group is the first known group virtually having this property but which is not virtually special nor virtually residually free.
We show that the automorphism group of a one-dimensional full shift (the group of reversible cellular automata) does not satisfy the Tits alternative. That is, we construct a finitely-generated subgroup which is not virtually solvable yet does not contain a free group on two generators. We give constructions both in the two-sided case (spatially acting group $\Z$) and the one-sided case (spatially acting monoid $\N$, alphabet size at least eight). Lack of Tits alternative follows for several groups of symbolic (dynamical) origin: automorphism groups of two-sided one-dimensional uncountable sof…
We prove a Tits alternative theorem for groups acting on CAT(0) cubical complexes. Namely, suppose that $G$ is a group for which there is a bound on the orders of its finite subgroups. We prove that if $G$ acts properly on a finite-dimensional CAT(0) cubical complex, then either $G$ contains a free subgroup of rank 2 or $G$ is finitely generated and virtually abelian. In particular the above conclusion holds for any group $G$ with a free action on a finite-dimensional CAT(0) cubical complex.
We study subgroups of fundamental groups of real analytic closed 4-manifolds with nonpositive sectional curvature. In particular, we are interested in the following question: if a subgroup of the fundamental group is not virtually free abelian, does it contain a free group of rank two ? The technique involves the theory of general metric spaces of nonpositive curvature.
We prove a version of the Tits alternative for groups acting on complete, finite rank median spaces. This shows that group actions on finite rank median spaces are much more restricted than actions on general median spaces. Along the way, we extend to median spaces the Caprace-Sageev machinery and part of Hagen's theory of unidirectional boundary sets.
We prove an analog of the Tits alternative for rational functions. In particular, we show that if $S$ is a finitely generated semigroup of rational functions over the complex numbers, then either $S$ has polynomially bounded growth or $S$ contains a nonabelian free semigroup. We also show that if f and g are polarizable maps over any field that do not have the same set of preperiodic points, then the semigroup generated by f and g contains a nonabelian free semigroup.
In this article, we study the smooth mapping class group of a surface S relative to a given Cantor set, that is the group of isotopy classes of orientation-preserving smooth diffeomorphisms of S which preserve this Cantor set. When the Cantor set is the standard ternary Cantor set, we prove that the subgroup consisting of diffeomorphisms which are isotopic to the identity on S does not contain any distorted elements. Moreover, we prove a weak Tits alternative for these groups.
Given a toric affine algebraic variety $X$ and a collection of one-parameter unipotent subgroups $U_1,\ldots,U_s$ of $\mathop{\rm Aut}(X)$ which are normalized by the torus acting on $X$, we show that the group $G$ generated by $U_1,\ldots,U_s$ verifies the following alternative of Tits' type: either $G$ is a unipotent algebraic group, or it contains a non-abelian free subgroup. We deduce that if $G$ is $2$-transitive on a $G$-orbit in $X$, then $G$ contains a non-abelian free subgroup, and so, is of exponential growth.
Following previous work of the second author, we establish more properties of groups of circle homeomorphisms which admit invariant laminations. In this paper, we focus on a certain type of such groups-so-called pseudo-fibered groups, and show that many 3-manifold groups are examples of pseudo-fibered groups. We then prove that torsion-free pseudo-fibered groups satisfy a Tits alternative. We conclude by proving that a purely hyperbolic pseudo-fibered group acts on the 2-sphere as a convergence group. This leads to an interesting question if there are examples of pseudo-fibered groups other th…
A celebrated theorem of Curtis and Tits on groups with finite BN-pair shows that roughly speaking these groups are determined by their local structure. This result was later extended to Kac-Moody groups by P.~Abramenko and B.~Mühlherr. Their theorem states that a Kac-Moody group $G$ is the universal completion of an amalgam of rank two (Levi) subgroups, as they are arranged inside $G$ itself. Taking this result as a starting point, we define a Curtis-Tits structure over a given diagram to be an amalgam of groups such that the sub-amalgam corresponding to a two-vertex sub-diagram is the Curtis-…
The goal of this article is two-fold: in a first part, we prove Azuma-Hoeffding type concentration inequalities around the drift for the displacement of non-elementary random walks on hyperbolic spaces. For a proper hyperbolic space $M$, we obtain explicit bounds that depend only on $M$, the size of support of the measure as in the classical case of sums of independent random variables, and on the norm of the driving probability measure in the left regular representation of the group of isometries. We obtain uniform bounds in the case of hyperbolic groups and effective bounds for simple linear…
The study of the existence of free groups in skew linear groups have been begun since the last decades of the 20-th century. The starting point is the theorem of Tits (1972), now often is referred as Tits' Alternative, stating that every finitely generated subgroup of the general linear group $\GL_n(F)$ over a field $F$ either contains a non-cyclic free subgroup or it is solvable-by-finite. In this paper, we study the existence of non-cyclic free subgroups in maximal subgroups of an almost subnormal subgroup of the general skew linear group over a locally finite division ring.
The famous Tits' alternative states that a linear group either contains a nonabelian free group or is soluble-by-(locally finite). We study in this paper similar alternatives in pseudofinite groups. We show for instance that an $\aleph_{0}$-saturated pseudofinite group either contains a subsemigroup of rank $2$ or is nilpotent-by-(uniformly locally finite). We call a class of finite groups $G$ weakly of bounded rank if the radical $rad(G)$ has a bounded Prüfer rank and the index of the sockel of $G/rad(G)$ is bounded. We show that an $\aleph_{0}$-saturated pseudo-(finite weakly of bounded rank…
Building on previous results concerning hyperbolicity of groups of Fibonacci type, we give an almost complete classification of the (non-elementary) hyperbolic groups within this class. We are unable to determine the hyperbolicity status of precisely two groups, namely the Gilbert-Howie groups H(9,4), H(9,7). We show that if H(9,4) is torsion-free then it is not hyperbolic. We consider the class of T(5) cyclically presented groups and classify the (non-elementary) hyperbolic groups and show that the Tits alternative holds.
We prove a uniform version of the Tits alternative. As a consequence, we obtain uniform lower bounds for the Cheeger constant of Cayley grahs of finitely generated non virtually solvable linear groups in arbitrary characteristic. Also we show that the algebraic entropy of discrete subgroups of a given Lie group is uniformly bounded away from zero.
We introduce a quantitative characterization of subgroup alternatives modeled on the Tits alternative in terms of group laws and investigate when this property is preserved under extensions. We develop a framework that lets us expand the classes of groups known to have locally uniform exponential growth to include extensions of either word hyperbolic or right-angled Artin groups by groups with locally uniform exponential growth. From this, we deduce that the automorphism group of a torsion-free one-ended hyperbolic group has locally uniform exponential growth. Our methods also demonstrate that…
For a two-dimensional Artin group $A$ whose associated Coxeter group is hyperbolic, we prove that the action of $A$ on the hyperbolic space obtained by coning off certain subcomplexes of its modified Deligne complex is acylindrical. Moreover, if for each $s\in S$ there is $t\in S$ with $m_{st}< \infty$, then this action is universal. As a consequence, for $|S|\geq 3$, if $A$ is irreducible, then it is acylindrically hyperbolic. We also obtain the Tits alternative for $A$, and we classify the subgroups of $A$ that virtually split as a direct product. A key ingredient in our approach is a simple…
We establish obstructions for groups to act by homeomorphisms on dendrites. For instance, lattices in higher rank simple Lie groups will always fix a point or a pair. The same holds for irreducible lattices in products of connected groups. Further results include a Tits alternative and a description of the topological dynamics. We briefly discuss to what extent our results hold for more general topological curves.
It is known that a group shift on a polycyclic group is necessarily of finite type. We show that, for trivial reasons, if a group does not satisfy the maximal condition on subgroups, then it admits non-SFT abelian group shifts. In particular, we show that if group is elementarily amenable or satisfies the Tits alternative, then it is virtually polycyclic if and only if all its group shifts are of finite type. Our theorems are minor elaborations of results of Schmidt and Osin.
