arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Christopher H. Cashen.
We present the results of computer experiments suggesting that the probability that a random multiword in a free group is virtually geometric decays to zero exponentially quickly in the length of the multiword. We then prove this fact.
We introduce and systematically study the concept of a growth tight action. This generalizes growth tightness for word metrics as initiated by Grigorchuk and de la Harpe. Given a finitely generated, non-elementary group $G$ acting on a $G$--space $\mathcal{X}$, we prove that if $G$ contains a strongly contracting element and if $G$ is not too badly distorted in $\mathcal{X}$, then the action of $G$ on $\mathcal{X}$ is a growth tight action. It follows that if $\mathcal{X}$ is a cocompact, relatively hyperbolic $G$--space, then the action of $G$ on $\mathcal{X}$ is a growth tight action. This generalizes all previously known results for growth tightness of cocompact actions: every already known example of a group that admits a growth tight action and has some infinite, infinite index normal subgroups is relatively hyperbolic, and, conversely, relatively hyperbolic groups admit growth tight actions. This also allows us to prove that many CAT(0) groups, including flip-graph-manifold groups and many Right Angled Artin Groups, and snowflake groups admit cocompact, growth tight actions. These provide first examples of non-relatively hyperbolic groups admitting interesting growth tight actions. Our main result applies as well to cusp uniform actions on hyperbolic spaces and to the action of the mapping class group on Teichmueller space with the Teichmueller metric. Towards the proof of our main result, we give equivalent characterizations of strongly contracting elements and produce new examples of group actions with strongly contracting elements.
A group action on a metric space is called growth tight if the exponential growth rate of the group with respect to the induced pseudo-metric is strictly greater than that of its quotients. A prototypical example is the action of a free group on its Cayley graph with respect to a free generating set. More generally, with Arzhantseva we have shown that group actions with strongly contracting elements are growth tight. Examples of non-growth tight actions are product groups acting on the $L^1$ products of Cayley graphs of the factors. In this paper we consider actions of product groups on product spaces, where each factor group acts with a strongly contracting element on its respective factor space. We show that this action is growth tight with respect to the $L^p$ metric on the product space, for all $1<p\leq \infty$. In particular, the $L^\infty$ metric on a product of Cayley graphs corresponds to a word metric on the product group. This gives the first examples of groups that are growth tight with respect to an action on one of their Cayley graphs and non-growth tight with respect to an action on another, answering a question of Grigorchuk and de la Harpe.
Let $G$ be the mapping torus of a polynomially growing automorphism of a finitely generated free group. We determine which epimorphisms from $G$ to $\mathbb{Z}$ have finitely generated kernel, and we compute the rank of the kernel. We thus describe all possible ways of expressing $G$ as the mapping torus of a free group automorphism. This is similar to the case for 3--manifold groups, and different from the case of mapping tori of exponentially growing free group automorphisms. The proof uses a hierarchical decomposition of $G$ and requires determining the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel invariant of the fundamental group of certain graphs of groups.
We give a geometric proof of a well known theorem that describes splittings of a free group as an amalgamated product or HNN extension over the integers. The argument generalizes to give a similar description of splittings of a virtually free group over a virtually cyclic group.
We study line patterns in a free group by considering the topology of the decomposition space, a quotient of the boundary at infinity of the free group related to the line pattern. We show that the group of quasi-isometries preserving a line pattern in a free group acts by isometries on a related space if and only if there are no cut pairs in the decomposition space.
We show that the maximum slope invariant for tubular groups is easy to calculate, and give an example of two tubular groups that are distinguishable by their maximum slopes but not by edge pattern considerations or isoperimetric function.