arXiv subjects

Alice Kerr

Publications and source records attributed to Alice Kerr.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Stable subgroups of graph products

We extend the characterization of stable subgroups of right-angled Artin groups of Koberda, Mangahas and Taylor to the case of graph products of infinite groups. Specifically, we show that the stable subgroups of such graph products are exactly the subgroups that quasi-isometrically embed in the associated contact graph. Equivalently, they are the subgroups that satisfy a condition arising from the defining graph: a stable subgroup is an almost join-free subgroup. In particular, we generalize the equivalence between stable and purely loxodromic subgroups from Koberda, Mangahas and Taylor in the case where all torsion subgroups of the vertex groups are finite, and the equivalence between stable and infinite index Morse subgroups from Tran in the case where the defining graph is connected.

math.GR↗

arXiv2024

Short positive loxodromics in graph products

We give a method for effectively generating generalised loxodromics in subgroups of graph products, using positive words. This has several consequences for the growth of subsets of these groups. In particular, we show that graph products of groups with strong product set growth properties also share those properties. We additionally show that the set of growth rates of a class of subgroups of any graph product of equationally noetherian groups is well-ordered.

math.GR↗

arXiv2023

(Non-)Recognizing Spaces for Stable Subgroups

In this note, we consider the notion of what we call recognizing spaces for stable subgroups of a given group. When a group $G$ is a mapping class group or right-angled Artin group, it is known that a subgroup is stable exactly when the largest acylindrical action $G \curvearrowright X$ provides a quasi-isometric embedding of the subgroup into $X$ via the orbit map. In this sense the largest acylindrical action for mapping class groups and right-angled Artin groups provides a recognizing space for all stable subgroups. In contrast, we construct an acylindrically hyperbolic group (relatively hyperbolic, in fact) whose largest acylindrical action does not recognize all stable subgroups.

math.GR↗

arXiv2021

Product set growth in virtual subgroups of mapping class groups

We study product set growth in groups with acylindrical actions on quasi-trees and, more generally, hyperbolic spaces. As a consequence, we show that for every surface $S$ of finite type, there exist $\alpha,\beta>0$ such that for any finite symmetric subset $U$ of the mapping class group $MCG(S)$ we have $|U|\geqslant (\alpha|U|)^{\beta n}$, so long as no finite index subgroup of $\langle U\rangle$ has an infinite centre. This gives us a dichotomy for the finitely generated subgroups of mapping class groups, which extends to virtual subgroups. As right-angled Artin groups embed as subgroups of mapping class groups, this result applies to them, and so also applies to finitely generated virtually special groups. We separately prove that we can quickly generate loxodromic elements in right-angled Artin groups, which by a result of Fujiwara shows that the set of growth rates for many of their subgroups are well-ordered.

math.GR↗

arXiv2020

Tree approximation in quasi-trees

In this paper we investigate the geometric properties of quasi-trees, and prove some equivalent criteria. We give a general construction of a tree that approximates the ends of a geodesic space, and use this to prove that every quasi-tree is $(1,C)$-quasi-isometric to a simplicial tree. As a consequence, we show that Gromov's tree approximation lemma for hyperbolic spaces can be improved in the case of quasi-trees to give a uniform approximation for any set of points, independent of cardinality. From this we show that having uniform tree approximation for finite subsets is equivalent to being able to uniformly approximate the entire space by a tree. As another consequence, we note that the boundary of a quasi-tree is isometric to the boundary of its approximating tree under a certain choice of visual metric, and that this gives a natural extension of the standard metric on the boundary of a tree.

math.MG↗