SearcharxivSearch

arXiv · 0910.5408

Asymmetry of Outer Space

Abstract

We study the asymmetry of the Lipschitz metric d on Outer space. We introduce an (asymmetric) Finsler norm that induces d. There is an Out(F_n)-invariant potential Ψon Outer space such that when the Lipschitz norm is corrected by the derivative of Ψ, the resulting norm is quasisymmetric. As an application, we give new proofs of two theorems of Handel-Mosher, that the Lipschitz metric is quasi-symmetric when restricted to a thick part of Outer space, and that there is a uniform bound, depending only on the rank, on the ratio of logs of growth rates of any irreducible outer automorphism f in Out(F_n) and its inverse.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Yael Algom-Kfir, Mladen Bestvina. 2011-03-23. Asymmetry of Outer Space. https://arxiv.org/abs/0910.5408

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Reversibility and its asymptotic counting in Picard group

We investigate reversible elements in the Picard modular group $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb{Z}[i])$. We show that reversibility coincides with strong reversibility for Kleinian groups, in particular for the Picard group. We classify reversible elements in the Picard group and characterize loxodromic reversible elements up to conjugacy. We prove that each such conjugacy class contains exactly eight special representatives. We also obtain asymptotic estimates for the number of reversible conjugacy classes with bounded trace.

math.GR

Conjugator length in finitely generated groups

We describe all functions $\mathbb{N}\rightarrow \mathbb{N}$ that can be realized, up to the standard equivalence, as conjugator length functions of finitely generated groups. Furthermore, we show that any two increasing functions $f,g\colon \mathbb N\to \mathbb N$ can be simultaneously realized as conjugator length functions of finitely generated, commensurable (in particular, quasi-isometric) groups.

math.GR

The spectrum of conjugator length functions

A recent program tries to find which functions appear as conjugator length functions. In this note, we show that any (computable) increasing function larger than $n$ appears as $\mathrm{Cl}_G$ for some finitely generated (recursively presented) group. On the other hand, we demonstrate that either $\mathrm{Cl}_G$ must be constant or $\mathrm{Cl}_G(n)\succ n$. Combining these, we obtain a complete description of which functions appear as conjugator length functions of finitely generated groups.

math.GR