25 pages, 3 figures. Improved exposition, significantly strengthened results (assumption on $ω$-dimensionality may be dropped, equivalence between parallel walls property and uniformness, new quantitative results)
Let X be a proper CAT(0) space. A halfspace system (or cubulation) of X is a set H of open halfspaces closed under closure-complementation and such that every point in X has a neighbourhood intersecting only finitely many walls of H. Given a cubulation H, one uses the Sageev-Roller construction to form a cubing C(H).
One setting in which cubulations were studied is that of a Coxeter group (W,R) acting on its Davis-Moussong complex, with elements of H being the halfspaces defined by reflections. For this setting, Niblo and Reeves had shown that C(H) is a finite-dimensional, locally-finite cubing. Their proof explicitly uses the `parallel walls property' of Coxeter groups, proved by Brink and Howlett, and heavily relies on meticulous calculations with the root system associated with (W,R).
We generalize their local finiteness result using the visual boundary of X, endowed with the cone topology. We introduce an asymptotic condition on H (`uniformness'), and show it is equivalent to H having the parallel walls property together with boundedness of chambers. Uniformness regards the way in which boundary points are approximated by the walls of H. We prove that if G is a group acting geometrically on a CAT(0) space X and H is a uniform cubulation of X invariant under G, then C(H) is locally-finite. We also show that the obvious map of $X$ into $C(H)$ is a quasi-isometry, and use this to give quantitative results strengthening the parallel walls property.
We introduce a new kind of action of a relatively hyperbolic group on a CAT(0) cube complex, called a relatively geometric action. We provide an application to characterize finite-volume Kleinian groups in terms of action on cube complexes, analogous to the results of Markovic and Haïssinsky in the closed case.
In this work we introduce a new combinatorial notion of boundary $\Re C$ of an $ω$-dimensional cubing $C$. $\Re C$ is defined to be the set of almost-equality classes of ultrafilters on the standard system of halfspaces of $C$, endowed with an order relation reflecting the interaction between the Tychonoff closures of the classes. When $C$ arises as the dual of a cubulation -- or discrete system of halfspaces -- $\HH$ of a CAT(0) space $X$ (for example, the Niblo-Reeves cubulation of the Davis-Moussong complex of a finite rank Coxeter group), we show how $\HH$ induces a function $ρ:\bd X\to\Re…
A tubular group is a group that acts on a tree with $\mathbb{Z}^2$ vertex stabilizers and $\mathbb{Z}$ edge stabilizers. This paper develops further a criterion of Wise and determines when a tubular group acts freely on a finite dimensional CAT(0) cube complex. As a consequence we offer a unified explanation of the failure of separability by revisiting the non-separable 3-manifold group of Burns, Karrass and Solitar and relating it to the work of Rubinstein and Wang. We also prove that if an immersed wall yields an infinite dimensional cubulation then the corresponding subgroup is quadraticall…
We provide a condition on the links of polygonal complexes that is sufficient to ensure groups acting properly discontinuously and cocompactly on such complexes contain a virtually free codimension-1 subgroup. We provide stronger conditions on the links of polygonal complexes, which are sufficient to ensure groups acting properly discontinuously and cocompactly on such complexes act properly discontinuously on a CAT(0) cube complex. If the group is hyperbolic then this action is also cocompact, hence by Agol's Theorem the group is virtually special (in the sense of Haglund-Wise); in particular…
In this article, we associate to isometries of CAT(0) cube complexes specific subspaces, referred to as \emph{median sets}, which play a similar role as minimising sets of semisimple isometries in CAT(0) spaces. Various applications are deduced, including a cubulation of centralisers, a splitting theorem, a proof that Dehn twists in mapping class groups must be elliptic for every action on a CAT(0) cube complex, a cubical version of the flat torus theorem, and a structural theorem about polycyclic groups acting on CAT(0) cube complexes.
We show that the homological finiteness length of a non-uniform lattice on a locally finite CAT(0) n-dimensional polyhedral complex is less than n. As a corollary, we obtain an upper bound for the homological finiteness length of arithmetic groups over function fields. This gives an easier proof of a result of Bux and Wortman that solved a long-standing conjecture.
We bound the size of $d$-dimensional cubulations of finitely presented groups. We apply this bound to obtain acylindrical accessibility for actions on CAT(0) cube complexes and bounds on curves on surfaces.
In this paper we investigate finiteness properties of totally disconnected locally compact groups for general commutative rings $R$, in particular for $R = \mathbb{Z}$ and $R= \mathbb{Q}$. We show these properties satisfy many analogous results to the case of discrete groups, and we provide analogues of the famous Bieri's and Brown's criteria for finiteness properties and deduce that both $FP_n$-properties and $F_n$-properties are quasi-isometric invariant. Moreover, we introduce graph-wreath products in the category of totally disconnected locally compact groups and discuss their finiteness p…
Given a group G, we consider its classifying space for the family of virtually cyclic subgroups. We show for many groups, including for example, one-relator groups, acylindrically hyperbolic groups, 3-manifold groups and CAT(0) cube groups, that they do not admit a finite model for this classifying space unless they are virtually cyclic. This settles a conjecture due to Juan-Pineda and Leary for these classes of groups.
For a group $G$ we consider the classifying space $E_{\mathcal{VC}yc}(G)$ for the family of virtually cyclic subgroups. We show that an Artin group admits a finite model for $E_{\mathcal{VC}yc}(G)$ if and only if it is virtually cyclic. This solves a conjecture of Juan-Pineda and Leary and a question of Lück-Reich-Rognes-Varisco for Artin groups. We then study the conjugacy growth of CAT(0) groups and show that if a CAT(0) group contains a free abelian group of rank two, its conjugacy growth is strictly faster than linear. This also yields an alternative proof for the fact that a CAT(0) cube g…
We describe a higher dimensional analogue of the Stallings folding sequence for group actions on CAT(0) cube complexes. We use it to give a characterization of quasiconvex subgroups of hyperbolic groups which act properly co-compactly on CAT(0) cube complexes via finiteness properties of their hyperplane stabilizers.
We give a generalized and self-contained account of Haglund-Paulin's wallspaces and Sageev's construction of the CAT(0) cube complex dual to a wallspace. We examine criteria on a wallspace leading to finiteness properties of its dual cube complex. Our discussion is aimed at readers wishing to apply these methods to produce actions of groups on cube complexes and understand their nature. We develop the wallspace ideas in a level of generality that facilitates their application. Our main result describes the structure of dual cube complexes arising from relatively hyperbolic groups. Let H_1,...,…
Let $G$ be an infinite discrete group. A classifying space for proper actions of $G$ is a proper $G$-CW-complex $X$ such that the fixed point sets $X^H$ are contractible for all finite subgroups $H$ of $G$. In this paper we consider the stable analogue of the classifying space for proper actions in the category of proper $G$-spectra and study its finiteness properties. We investigate when $G$ admits a stable classifying space for proper actions that is finite or of finite type and relate these conditions to the compactness of the sphere spectrum in the homotopy category of proper $G$-spectra a…
We propose a new unifying framework for Thompson-like groups using a well-known device called operads and category theory as language. We discuss examples of operad groups which have appeared in the literature before. As a first application, we proof a theorem which implies that planar or symmetric or braided operads with transformations satisfying some finiteness conditions yield operad groups of type $F_\infty$. This unifies and extends existing proofs that certain Thompson-like groups are of type $F_\infty$.
We introduce the class of perturbed right-angled Artin groups. These are constructed by gluing Bieri double groups into standard right-angled Artin groups. As a first application of this construction we obtain families of CAT(0) groups containing finitely presented subgroups which are not of type $\mathrm{FP}_3$, and have exponential, or polynomial Dehn functions of prescribed degree.
We combine a combinatorial idea of Benjamin Weiss and some localization theory of Grothendieck categories to give a short and completely self-contained proof of the following recent result of Hanfeng Li and Bingbing Liang: Given a left Noetherian ring $R$ and a sofic group $G$, the group-ring $R[G]$ is stably finite.
We describe a procedure called panel collapse for replacing a CAT(0) cube complex $Ψ$ by a "lower complexity" CAT(0) cube complex $Ψ_\bullet$ whenever $Ψ$ contains a codimension-$2$ hyperplane that is extremal in one of the codimension-$1$ hyperplanes containing it. Although $Ψ_\bullet$ is not in general a subcomplex of $Ψ$, it is a subspace consisting of a subcomplex together with some cubes that sit inside $Ψ$ "diagonally". The hyperplanes of $Ψ_\bullet$ extend to hyperplanes of $Ψ$. Applying this procedure, we prove: if a group $G$ acts cocompactly on a CAT(0) cube complex $Ψ$, then there i…
We investigate the representation theory of finite sets. The correspondence functors are the functors from the category of finite sets and correspondences to the category of k-modules, where k is a commutative ring. They have various specific properties which do not hold for other types of func-tors. In particular, if k is a field and if F is a correspondence functor, then F is finitely generated if and only if the dimension of F (X) grows exponentially in terms of the cardinality of the finite set X. Moreover, in such a case, F has actually finite length. Also, if k is noetherian, then any su…
We show that perverse equivalences between module categories of finite-dimensional algebras preserve rationality. As an application, we give a connection between some famous conjectures from the modular representation theory of finite groups, namely Broué's Abelian Defect Group conjecture and Donovan's Finiteness conjectures.
