Relative hyperbolicity of free extensions of free groups

Abstract

We give necessary and sufficient conditions for a free-by-free group to be relatively hyperbolic with a cusp-preserving structure. Namely, if $\phi_1, \ldots , \phi_k $ is a collection of exponentially growing outer automorphisms with a common invariant \emph{subgroup system} such that any conjugacy class in the complement of this system grows exponentially under iteration by all $\phi_i$, then such a subgroup system can be used to construct a collection of peripheral subgroups relative to which, the extension of $\mathbb F$ by the free group generated by sufficiently high powers of $\phi_1, \ldots , \phi_k $, will be hyperbolic.