Realising all countable groups as quasi-isometry groups

Abstract

Given any countable group $G$, we construct uncountably many quasi-isometry classes of proper geodesic metric spaces with quasi-isometry group isomorphic to $G$. Moreover, if the group $G$ is a hyperbolic group, the spaces we construct are hyperbolic metric spaces. We make use of a rigidity phenomenon for quasi-isometries exhibited by many symmetric spaces, called strong quasi-isometric rigidity. Our method involves the construction of new examples of strongly quasi-isometrically rigid spaces, arising as graphs of strongly quasi-isometrically rigid rank-one symmetric spaces.