We call a finitely generated group lacunary hyperbolic if one of its asymptotic cones is an R-tree. We characterize lacunary hyperbolic groups as direct limits of Gromov hyperbolic groups satisfying certain restrictions on the hyperbolicity constants and injectivity radii. Using central extensions of lacunary hyperbolic groups, we solve a problem of Gromov by constructing a group whose asymptotic cone C has countable but non-trivial fundamental group (in fact C is homeomorphic to the direct product of a tree and a circle, so π_1(C)=Z). We show that the class of lacunary hyperbolic groups contains elementary amenable groups, groups with all proper subgroups cyclic, and torsion groups. This allows us to solve two problems of Drutu and Sapir, and a problem of Kleiner about groups with cut-points in their asymptotic cones. We also construct a finitely generated group whose divergence function is not linear but is arbitrarily close to being linear. This answers a question of Behrstock.
In this article we study automorphisms and endomorphisms of lacunary hyperbolic groups. We prove that every lacunary hyperbolic group is Hopfian, answering a question by Henry Wilton. In addition, we show that if a lacunary hyperbolic group has the fix point property for actions on $\mathbf R$-trees, then it is co-Hopfian and its outer automorphism group is locally finite. We also construct lacunary hyperbolic groups whose automorphism group is infinite, locally finite, and contains any locally finite group given in advance.
We investigate the class of locally compact lacunary hyperbolic groups. We prove that if a locally compact compactly generated group G admits one asymptotic cone that is a real tree and whose natural transitive isometric action is focal, then G must be a focal hyperbolic group. As an application, we characterize connected Lie groups and linear algebraic groups over an ultrametric local field of characteristic zero having cut-points in one asymptotic cone. We prove several results for locally compact lacunary hyperbolic groups, and extend the characterization of finitely generated lacunary hype…
A finitely generated group is lacunary hyperbolic if one of its asymptotic cones is an $\mathbb{R}$-tree. In this article we give a necessary and sufficient condition on lacunary hyperbolic groups in order to be stable under free product by giving a dynamical characterization of lacunary hyperbolic groups. Also we studied limits of elementary subgroups as subgroups of lacunary hperbolic groups and characterized them. Given any countable collection of increasing union of elementary groups we show that there exists a lacunary hyperbolic group whose set of all maximal subgroups is the given colle…
We show that the universal theory of torsion groups is strongly contained in the universal theory of finite groups. This answers a question of Dyson. We also prove that the universal theory of some natural classes of torsion groups is undecidable. Finally we observe that the universal theory of the class of hyperbolic groups is undecidable and use this observation to construct a lacunary hyperbolic group with undecidable universal theory. Surprisingly, torsion groups play an important role in the proof of the latter results.
We study the word and conjugacy problems in lacunary hyperbolic groups (briefly, LHG). In particular, we describe a necessary and sufficient condition for decidability of the word problem in LHG. Then, based on the graded small-cancellation theory of Olshanskii, we develop a general framework which allows us to construct lacunary hyperbolic groups with word and conjugacy problems highly controllable and flexible both in terms of computability and computational complexity. As an application, we show that for any recursively enumerable subset $\mathcal{L} \subseteq \mathcal{A}^*$, where $\mathca…
Let $\mathcal G$ denote the space of finitely generated marked groups. We give equivalent characterizations of closed subspaces $\mathcal S\subseteq \mathcal G$ satisfying the following zero-one law: for any sentence $σ$ in the infinitary logic $\mathcal L_{ω_1, ω}$, the set of all models of $σ$ in $\mathcal S$ is either meager or comeager. In particular, we show that the zero-one law holds for certain natural spaces associated to hyperbolic groups and their generalizations. As an application, we obtain that generic torsion-free lacunary hyperbolic groups are elementarily equivalent; the same …
We introduce an obstruction to the existence of a coarse embedding of a given group or space into a hyperbolic group, or more generally into a hyperbolic graph of bounded degree. The condition we consider is "admitting exponentially many fat bigons", and it is preserved by a coarse embedding between graphs with bounded degree. Groups with exponential growth and linear divergence (such as direct products of two groups one of which has exponential growth, solvable groups that are not virtually nilpotent, and uniform higher-rank lattices) have this property and hyperbolic graphs do not, so the fo…
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 a group is not virtually cyclic and is hyperbolic relative to a family of proper subgroups, then it has a hyperbolically embedded subgroup which contains a finitely generated non-abelian free group as a finite index subgroup.
We introduce and study the notions of hyperbolically embedded and very rotating families of subgroups. The former notion can be thought of as a generalization of the peripheral structure of a relatively hyperbolic group, while the later one provides a natural framework for developing a geometric version of small cancellation theory. Examples of such families naturally occur in groups acting on hyperbolic spaces including hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups, mapping class groups, $Out(F_n)$, and the Cremona group. Other examples can be found among groups acting geometrically on $CAT(0)$…
We prove that the automorphism group of every infinitely-ended finitely generated group is acylindrically hyperbolic. In particular $\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbb{F}_n)$ is acylindrically hyperbolic for every $n\ge 2$. More generally, if $G$ is a group which is not virtually cyclic, and hyperbolic relative to a finite collection $\mathcal{P}$ of finitely generated proper subgroups, then $\mathrm{Aut}(G,\mathcal{P})$ is acylindrically hyperbolic. As a consequence, a free-by-cyclic group $\mathbb{F}_n\rtimes_φ\mathbb{Z}$ is acylindrically hyperbolic if and only if $φ$ has infinite order in $\mathrm{Out}(…
We give a criterion to prove that some groups are not acylindrically hyperbolic. As an application, we prove that the mapping class group of an infinite type surface is not acylindrically hyperbolic.
Dehn fillings for relatively hyperbolic groups generalize the topological Dehn surgery on a non-compact hyperbolic $3$-manifold such as a hyperbolic knot complement. We prove a rigidity result saying that if two non-elementary relatively hyperbolic groups without suitable splittings have sufficiently many isomorphic Dehn fillings, then these groups are in fact isomorphic. Our main application is a solution to the isomorphism problem in the class of non-elementary relatively hyperbolic groups with residually finite parabolic groups and with no suitable splittings.
We prove that for every countable group G there exists a hyperbolic 3-manifold M such that the isometry group of M, the mapping class group of M, and the outer automorphism group of the fundamental group of M are isomorphic to G.
We will show that, for any noncompact arithmetic hyperbolic $m$-manifold with $m> 3$, and any compact arithmetic hyperbolic $m$-manifold with $m> 4$ that is not a $7$-dimensional arithmetic hyperbolic manifold defined by octonions, its fundamental group is not LERF. The main ingredient in the proof is a study on abelian amalgamations of hyperbolic $3$-manifold groups. We will also show that a compact orientable irreducible $3$-manifold with empty or tori boundary supports a geometric structure if and only if its fundamental group is LERF.
The aim of this note is to give the simplest possible proof that Mapping Class Groups of closed hyperbolic surfaces are acylindrically hyperbolic, and more specifically that their curve graphs are hyperbolic and that pseudo-Anosovs act on them as loxodromic WPDs.
Baker and Riley proved that a free group of rank 3 can be contained in a hyperbolic group as a subgroup for which the Cannon-Thurston map is not well-defined. By using their result, we show that the phenomenon occurs for not only a free group of rank 3 but also every non-elementary hyperbolic group. In fact it is shown that a similar phenomenon occurs for every non-elementary relatively hyperbolic group.
In this paper we create many examples of hyperbolic groups with subgroups satisfying interesting finiteness properties. We give the first examples of subgroups of hyperbolic groups which are of type $FP_2$ but not finitely presented. We give uncountably many groups of type $FP_2$ with similar properties to those subgroups of hyperbolic groups. Along the way we create more subgroups of hyperbolic groups which are finitely presented but not of type $FP_3$.
Solvability of the conjugacy problem for relatively hyperbolic groups was announced by Gromov [Hyperbolic groups, MSRI publications 8 (1987)]. Using the definition of Farb of a relatively hyperbolic group in the strong sense [B Farb, Relatively hyperbolic groups, Geom. Func. Anal. 8 (1998) 810-840], we prove this assertion. We conclude that the conjugacy problem is solvable for fundamental groups of complete, finite-volume, negatively curved manifolds, and for finitely generated fully residually free groups.
We describe a procedure which verifies that a group given by generators and relators is word-hyperbolic. This procedure always works with a group which is word-hyperbolic, provided there is sufficient memory and time devoted to the problem. If the group is not word-hyperbolic, the procedure continues indefinitely. We also describe a procedure which computes the thinness of geodesic triangles in the Cayley graph of a word-hyperbolic group. Again this procedure is bound to work, given sufficient memory and time.
We study the geometry of nonrelatively hyperbolic groups. Generalizing a result of Schwartz, any quasi-isometric image of a non-relatively hyperbolic space in a relatively hyperbolic space is contained in a bounded neighborhood of a single peripheral subgroup. This implies that a group being relatively hyperbolic with nonrelatively hyperbolic peripheral subgroups is a quasi-isometry invariant. As an application, Artin groups are relatively hyperbolic if and only if freely decomposable. We also introduce a new quasi-isometry invariant of metric spaces called metrically thick, which is sufficien…
For any finitely generated, non-elementary, torsion-free group $G$ that is hyperbolic relative to $\mathbb P$, we show that there exists a group $G^*$ containing $G$ such that $G^*$ is hyperbolic relative to $\mathbb P$ and $G$ is not relatively quasiconvex in $G^*$. This generalizes a result of I. Kapovich for hyperbolic groups. We also prove that any torsion-free group $G$ that is non-elementary and hyperbolic relative to $\mathbb P$, contains a rank 2 free subgroup $F$ such that the group generated by "randomly" chosen elements $r_1,...,r_m$ in $F$ is aparabolic, malnormal in $G$ and quasic…
If a torsion-free hyperbolic group G has 1-dimensional boundary, then the boundary is a Menger curve or a Sierpinski carpet provided G does not split over a cyclic group. When the boundary of G is a Sierpinski carpet we show that G is a quasi-convex subgroup of a 3-dimensional hyperbolic Poincare duality group. We also construct a ``topologically rigid'' hyperbolic group G: any homeomorphism of the boundary of G is induced by an element of G.
Sela proved every torsion-free one-ended hyperbolic group is coHopfian. We prove that there exist torsion-free one-ended hyperbolic groups that are not commensurably coHopfian. In particular, we show that the fundamental group of every simple surface amalgam is not commensurably coHopfian.
We give several sufficient conditions for uniform exponential growth in the setting of virtually torsion-free hierarchically hyperbolic groups. For example, any hierarchically hyperbolic group that is also acylindrically hyperbolic has uniform exponential growth. In addition, we provide a quasi-isometric characterization of hierarchically hyperbolic groups without uniform exponential growth. To achieve this, we gain new insights on the structure of certain classes of hierarchically hyperbolic groups. Our methods give a new unified proof of uniform exponential growth for several examples of gro…
We prove that for a one-ended hyperbolic graph $X$, the size of the quotient $X/G$ by a group $G$ acting freely and cocompactly bounds from below the number of simplices in an Eilenberg-MacLane space for $G$. We apply this theorem to show that one-ended hyperbolic cubulated groups (or more generally, one-ended hyperbolic groups with globally stable cylinders à la Rips-Sela) cannot contain isomorphic finite-index subgroups of different indices.
We explore the combination theorem for a group G splitting as a graph of relatively hyperbolic groups. Using the fine graph approach to relative hyperbolicity, we find short proofs of the relative hyperbolicity of G under certain conditions. We then provide a criterion for the relative quasiconvexity of a subgroup H depending on the relative quasiconvexity of the intersection of H with the vertex groups of G. We give an application towards local relative quasiconvexity.
This is a (very subjective) survey paper for nonspecialists covering group actions on Gromov hyperbolic spaces. The first section is about hyperbolic groups themselves, while the rest of the paper focuses on mapping class groups and $Out(F_n)$, and the way to understand their large scale geometry using their actions on various hyperbolic spaces constructed using projection complexes. This understanding for $Out(F_n)$ significantly lags behind that of mapping class groups and the paper ends with a few open questions.
The goal of this mostly expository paper is to present several candidates for hyperbolic structures on irreducible Artin-Tits groups of spherical type and to elucidate some relations between them. Most constructions are algebraic analogues of previously known hyperbolic structures on Artin braid groups coming from natural actions of these groups on curve graphs and (modified) arc graphs of punctured disks.
We show that Out(G) is residually finite if G is a one-ended group that is hyperbolic relative to virtually polycyclic subgroups. More generally, if G is one-ended and hyperbolic relative to proper residually finite subgroups, the group of outer automorphisms preserving the peripheral structure is residually finite. We also show that Out(G) is virtually p-residually finite for every prime p if G is one-ended and toral relatively hyperbolic, or infinitely-ended and virtually p-residually finite.
We show that word-hyperbolic groups satisfy linear isoperimetric functions for all homotopy types of surface diagrams. This generalises the linear isoperimetric functions for disc and annular diagrams.
We prove that, for any two finite volume hyperbolic $3$-manifolds, the amalgamation of their fundamental groups along any nontrivial geometrically finite subgroup is not LERF. This generalizes the author's previous work on nonLERFness of amalgamations of hyperbolic $3$-manifold groups along abelian subgroups. A consequence of this result is that closed arithmetic hyperbolic $4$-manifolds have nonLERF fundamental groups. Along with the author's previous work, we get that, for any arithmetic hyperbolic manifold with dimension at least $4$, with possible exceptions in $7$-dimensional manifolds de…
We show that the Gromov boundary of the free product of two infinite hyperbolic groups is uniquely determined up to homeomorphism by the homeomorphism types of the boundaries of its factors. We generalize this result to graphs of hyperbolic groups over finite subgroups. Finally, we give a necessary and sufficient condition for the Gromov boundaries of any two hyperbolic groups to be homeomorphic (in terms of the topology of the boundaries of factors in terminal splittings over finite subgroups).
We construct nonlinear hyperbolic groups which are large, torsion-free, one-ended, and admit a finite $K(π,1)$. Our examples are built from superrigid cocompact rank one lattices via amalgamated free products and HNN extensions.
We prove that if every hyperbolic group is residually finite, then every quasi-convex subgroup of every hyperbolic group is separable. The main tool is relatively hyperbolic Dehn filling.
Let G be an acylindrically hyperbolic group. We consider a random subgroup H in G, generated by a finite collection of independent random walks. We show that, with asymptotic probability one, such a random subgroup H of G is a free group, and the semidirect product of H acting on E(G) is hyperbolically embedded in G, where E(G) is the unique maximal finite normal subgroup of G.
We build quasi--isometry invariants of relatively hyperbolic groups which detect the hyperbolic parts of the group; these are variations of the stable dimension constructions previously introduced by the authors. We prove that, given any finite collection of finitely generated groups $\mathcal{H}$ each of which either has finite stable dimension or is non-relatively hyperbolic, there exist infinitely many quasi--isometry types of one--ended groups which are hyperbolic relative to $\mathcal{H}$. The groups are constructed using small cancellation theory over free products.
The set of equivalence classes of cobounded actions of a group on different hyperbolic metric spaces carries a natural partial order. The resulting poset thus gives rise to a notion of the "best" hyperbolic action of a group as the largest element of this poset, if such an element exists. We call such an action a largest hyperbolic action. While hyperbolic groups admit largest hyperbolic actions, we give evidence in this paper that this phenomenon is rare for non-hyperbolic groups. In particular, we prove that many families of groups of geometric origin do not have largest hyperbolic actions, …
We present a careful approximation of the geodesics in trees of hyperbolic or relatively hyperbolic groups. As an application we prove a combination theorem for finite graphs of relatively hyperbolic groups, with both Farb's and Gromov's definitions.
We prove that a non-elementary relatively hyperbolic group is statistically hyperbolic with respect to every finite generating set. We also establish statistical hyperbolicity for certain direct products of two groups, one of which is relatively hyperbolic.
We generalize a version of small cancellation theory to the class of acylindrically hyperbolic groups. This class contains many groups which admit some natural action on a hyperbolic space, including non-elementary hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups, mapping class groups, and groups of outer automorphisms of free groups. Several applications of this small cancellation theory are given, including to Frattini subgroups and Kazhdan constants, the construction of various \exotic"' quotients, and to approximating acylindrically hyperbolic groups in the topology of marked group presentation…
Let G be a graph of hyperbolic groups with 2-ended edge groups. We show that G is hierarchically hyperbolic if and only if G has no distorted infinite cyclic subgroup. More precisely, we show that G is hierarchically hyperbolic if and only if G does not contain certain quotients of Baumslag-Solitar groups. As a consequence, we obtain several new results about this class, such as quadratic isoperimetric inequality and finite asymptotic dimension.
This paper considers the question of relative hyperbolicity of an Artin group with regard to the geometry of its associated Deligne complex. We prove that an Artin group is weakly hyperbolic relative to its finite (or spherical) type parabolic subgroups if and only if its Deligne complex is a Gromov hyperbolic space. For a 2-dimensional Artin group the Deligne complex is Gromov hyperbolic precisely when the corresponding Davis complex is Gromov hyperbolic, that is, precisely when the underlying Coxeter group is a hyperbolic group. For Artin groups of FC type we give a sufficient condition for …
We give a dynamical characterization of acylindrically hyperbolic groups. As an application, we prove that non-elementary convergence groups are acylindrically hyperbolic.
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.
The goal of this article is to survey some recent developments in the study of groups acting on hyperbolic spaces. We focus on the class of acylindrically hyperbolic groups; it is broad enough to include many examples of interest, yet a significant part of the theory of hyperbolic and relatively hyperbolic groups can be generalized in this context. In particular, we discuss group theoretic Dehn filling and small cancellation theory in acylindrically hyperbolic groups. Many results discussed here rely on the new generalization of relative hyperbolicity based on the notion of a hyperbolically em…
