arXiv subjects

Kane Townsend

Publications and source records attributed to Kane Townsend.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

New constructions of free products and geodetic Cayley graphs

A connected graph is called \emph{geodetic} if there is a unique shortest path between each pair of vertices. We introduce a systematic method for constructing new presentations of free products that give rise to previously unknown geodetic Cayley graphs. Our approach adapts subdivision techniques of Parthasarathy and Srinivasan (J. Combin. Theory Ser. B, 1982), which preserve geodecity at the graph level, to the setting of group presentations and rewriting systems. Specifically, given a group $G$ with geodetic Cayley graph with respect to generating set $\Sigma$ and an integer $n$, our construction produces a rewriting system presenting the free product of $G$ with a free group of rank $n|\Sigma|$ with geodetic Cayley graph with respect to a new generating set. This framework provides new infinite families of geodetic Cayley graphs and extends the toolkit for investigating long-standing conjectures on geodetic groups.

math.GR↗

arXiv2023

Graphs and groups with unique geodesics

A connected graph is called \emph{geodetic} if there is a unique geodesic between each pair of vertices. In this paper we prove that if a finitely generated group admits a Cayley graph which is geodetic, then the group must be virtually free. Before now, it was open whether finitely generated and geodetic implied hyperbolic. In fact we prove something more general: if a quasi-transitive locally finite connected undirected graph is geodetic then it is quasi-isometric to a tree. Our main tool is to define a \emph{boundary} of a graph and understand how the local behaviour influences it when the graph is geodetic. Our results unify, and represent significant progress on, research initiated by Ore, Shapiro, and Madlener and Otto.

math.GR↗

arXiv2022

On $k$-geodetic graphs and groups

We call a graph $k$-geodetic, for some $k\geq 1$, if it is connected and between any two vertices there are at most $k$ geodesics. It is shown that any hyperbolic group with a $k$-geodetic Cayley graph is virtually-free. Furthermore, in such a group the centraliser of any infinite order element is an infinite cyclic group. These results were known previously only in the case that $k=1$. A key tool used to develop the theorem is a new graph theoretic result concerning ``ladder-like structures'' in a $k$-geodetic graph.

math.GR↗