Right-angled mock reflection and mock Artin groups

We define a right-angled mock reflection group to be a group acting combinatorially on a CAT(0) cubical complex such that the action is simply-transitive on the vertex set and all edge-stabilizers are . We give a combinatorial characterization of these groups in terms of graphs with local involutions. Any such graph not only determines a mock reflection group, but it also determines a right-angled mock Artin group. Both classes of groups generalize the corresponding classes of right-angled Coxeter and Artin groups. We conclude by showing that the standard construction of a finite space for right-angled Artin groups generalizes to these mock Artin groups.

     

Improper actions and higher connectivity at infinity

Given an improper action (= cell stabilizers are infinite) of a group G on a CW-complex , we present criteria, based on connectivity at infinity properties of the cell stabilizers under the action of G that imply connectivity at infinity properties for G. A refinement of this idea yields information on the topology at infinity of Artin groups, and it gives significant progress on the question of which Artin groups are duality groups. Received: October 30, 1998     

From Symmetries of the Modular Tower of Genus Zero Real Stable Curves to a Euler Class for the Dyadic Circle

We construct actions of the spheromorphism group of Neretin (containing Thompson's group V) on towers of moduli spaces of genus zero real stable curves. The latter consist of inductive limits of spaces which are the real parts of the Grothendieck–Knudsen compactification of the moduli spaces of punctured Riemann spheres. By a result of M. Davis, T.Januszkiewicz and R. Scott, these spaces are aspherical cubical complexes whose fundamental groups, the pure quasi-braid groups, can be viewed as analogues of the Artin pure braid groups. By lifting the actions of the Thompson and Neretin groups to the universal covers of the towers, we obtain extensions of both groups by an infinite pure quasi-braid group, and construct an Euler class for the Neretin group. We justify this terminology by constructing a corresponding cocycle.     

A Geometric Rational Form for Artin Groups of FC Type

If A is an Artin group whose poset of finite type special subgroups is a flag complex, then A is said to be of FC type. Such groups act cocompactly on a CAT(0) cubical complex with finite type Artin groups as stabilizers. We use the geometry of this complex to obtain a rational normal form for the group.     

The <Emphasis Type="Italic">K</Emphasis>(π,1)-conjecture for the affine braid groups

The complement of the hyperplane arrangement associated to the (complexified) action of a finite, real reflection group on ⁿ is known to be a K(,1) space for the corresponding Artin group $\Cal A$. A long-standing conjecture states that an analogous statement should hold for infinite reflection groups. In this paper we consider the case of a Euclidean reflection group of type à _n and its associated Artin group, the affine braid group $\tilde{\Cal A}$. Using the fact that $\tilde{\Cal A}$ can be embedded as a subgroup of a finite type Artin group, we prove a number of conjectures about this group. In particular, we construct a finite, $n$-dimensional K(,1)-space for $\tilde{\Cal A}$, and use it to prove the K(,1) conjecture for the associated hyperlane complement. In addition, we show that the affine braid groups are biautomatic and give an explicit biautomatic structure.     

When is the graph product of hyperbolic groups hyperbolic?

Given a finite simplicial graph , and an assignment of groups to the verticles of , the graph product is the free product of the vertex groups modulo relations implying that adjacent vertex groups commute. We use Gromov's link criteria for cubical complexes and techniques of Davis and Moussang to study the curvature of graph products of groups. By constructing a CAT(–1) cubical complex, it is shown that the graph product of word hyperbolic groups is itself word hyperbolic if and only if the full subgraph in , generated by vertices whose associated groups are finite, satisfies three specific criteria. The construction shows that arbitrary graph products of finite groups are Bridson groups.     

Hilbert space compression and exactness of discrete groups

We show that the Hilbert space compression of any (unbounded) finite-dimensional CAT(0) cube complex is 1 and deduce that any finitely generated group acting properly, co-compactly on a CAT(0) cube complex is exact, and hence has Yu's Property A. The class of groups covered by this theorem includes free groups, finitely generated Coxeter groups, finitely generated right angled Artin groups, finitely presented groups satisfying the B(4)-T(4) small cancellation condition and all those word-hyperbolic groups satisfying the B(6) condition. Another family of examples is provided by certain canonical surgeries defined by link diagrams.     

On a transformation operator

We prove the existence of a transformation operator that takes the solution of the equationy″=λ²ⁿ y to the solution of the equation

Cohomology of affine Artin groups and applications

The result of this paper is the determination of the cohomology of Artin groups of type and with non-trivial local coefficients. The main result

is an explicit computation of the cohomology of the Artin group of type with coefficients over the module Here the first standard generators of the group act by -multiplication, while the last one acts by -multiplication. The proof uses some technical results from previous papers plus computations over a suitable spectral sequence. The remaining cases follow from an application of Shapiro's lemma, by considering some well-known inclusions: we obtain the rational cohomology of the Artin group of affine type as well as the cohomology of the classical braid group with coefficients in the -dimensional representation presented in Tong, Yang, and Ma (1996). The topological counterpart is the explicit construction of finite CW-complexes endowed with a free action of the Artin groups, which are known to be spaces in some cases (including finite type groups). Particularly simple formulas for the Euler-characteristic of these orbit spaces are derived.

     

Local indicability in ordered groups: Braids and elementary amenable groups

Groups which are locally indicable are also right-orderable, but not conversely. This paper considers a characterization of local indicability in right-ordered groups, the key concept being a property of right-ordered groups due to Conrad. Our methods answer a question regarding the Artin braid groups which are known to be right-orderable. The subgroups of pure braids enjoy an ordering which is invariant under multiplication on both sides, and it has been asked whether such an ordering of could extend to a right-invariant ordering of . We answer this in the negative. We also give another proof of a recent result of Linnell that for elementary amenable groups, the concepts of right-orderability and local indicability coincide.

     

Extreme Values of Artin L-Functions and Class Numbers

Assuming the generalized Riemann hypothesis (GRH) and Artin conjecture for Artin L-functions, we prove that there exists a totally real number field of any fixed degree (>1) with an arbitrarily large discriminant whose normal closure has the full symmetric group as Galois group and whose class number is essentially as large as possible. One ingredient is an unconditional construction of totally real fields with small regulators. Another is the existence of Artin L-functions with large special values. Assuming the GRH and Artin conjecture it is shown that there exist an Artin L-functions with arbitrarily large conductor whose value at s=1 is extremal and whose associated Galois representation has a fixed image, which is an arbitrary nontrivial finite irreducible subgroup of GL(n, ) with property Gal _T .     

Random regular graphs of high degree

Random d‐regular graphs have been well studied when d is fixed and the number of vertices goes to infinity. We obtain results on many of the properties of a random d‐regular graph when d=d(n) grows more quickly than . These properties include connectivity, hamiltonicity, independent set size, chromatic number, choice number, and the size of the second eigenvalue, among others. ©2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Random Struct. Alg., 18: 346–363, 2001.     

Homotopy of ends and boundaries of CAT(0) groups

For n ≥ 0, we exhibit CAT(0) groups that are n-connected at infinity, and have boundary which is (n − 1)-connected, but this boundary has non-trivial nth-homotopy group. In particular, we construct 1-ended CAT(0) groups that are simply connected at infinity, but have a boundary with non-trivial fundamental group. Our base examples are 1-ended CAT(0) groups that have non-path connected boundaries. In particular, we show all parabolic semidirect products of the free group of rank 2 and have a non-path connected boundary.     

Morse theory and conjugacy classes of finite subgroups

We construct a CAT(0) group containing a finitely presented subgroup with infinitely many conjugacy classes of finite-order elements. Unlike previous examples (which were based on right-angled Artin groups) our ambient CAT(0) group does not contain any rank 3 free abelian subgroups. We also construct examples of groups of type F _n inside mapping class groups, Aut(), and Out() which have infinitely many conjugacy classes of finite-order elements.      

Toric complexes and Artin kernels

A simplicial complex L on n vertices determines a subcomplex TL of the n-torus, with fundamental group the right-angled Artin group GL. Given an epimorphism χ:GL→Z, let be the corresponding cover, with fundamental group the Artin kernel Nχ. We compute the cohomology jumping loci of the toric complex TL, as well as the homology groups of with coefficients in a field k, viewed as modules over the group algebra kZ. We give combinatorial conditions for to have trivial Z-action, allowing us to compute the truncated cohomology ring, . We also determine several Lie algebras associated to Artin kernels, under certain triviality assumptions on the monodromy Z-action, and establish the 1-formality of these (not necessarily finitely presentable) groups.     

Amenability and exactness for dynamical systems and their -algebras

We study the relations between amenability (resp. amenability at infinity) of -dynamical systems and equality or nuclearity (resp. exactness) of the corresponding crossed products.

     

On the structure of the centralizer of a braid

The mixed braid groups are the subgroups of Artin braid groups whose elements preserve a given partition of the base points. We prove that the centralizer of any braid can be expressed in terms of semidirect and direct products of mixed braid groups. Then we construct a generating set of the centralizer of any braid on n strands, which has at most elements if n=2k, and at most elements if n=2k+1. These bounds are shown to be sharp, due to work of N.V. Ivanov and of S.J. Lee. Finally, we describe how one can explicitly compute this generating set.     

Braid pictures for Artin groups

We define the braid groups of a two-dimensional orbifold and introduce conventions for drawing braid pictures. We use these to realize the Artin groups associated to the spherical Coxeter diagrams , and and the affine diagrams , , and as subgroups of the braid groups of various simple orbifolds. The cases , , and are new. In each case the Artin group is a normal subgroup with abelian quotient; in all cases except the quotient is finite. We also illustrate the value of our braid calculus by giving a picture-proof of the basic properties of the Garside element of an Artin group of type .

     

Beurling Zeta Functions, Generalised Primes, and Fractal Membranes

We study generalised prime systems , with tending to infinity) and the associated Beurling zeta function . Under appropriate assumptions, we establish various analytic properties of , including its analytic continuation, and we characterise the existence of a suitable generalised functional equation. In particular, we examine the relationship between a counterpart of the Prime Number Theorem (with error term) and the properties of the analytic continuation of . Further we study ‘well-behaved’ g-prime systems, namely, systems for which both the prime and integer counting function are asymptotically well-behaved. Finally, we show that there exists a natural correspondence between generalised prime systems and suitable orders on . Some of the above results are relevant to the second author’s theory of ‘fractal membranes’, whose spectral partition functions are given by Beurling-type zeta functions, as well as to joint work of that author and R. Nest on zeta functions attached to quasicrystals.The work of M. L. Lapidus was partially supported by the U. S. National Science Foundation under grant DMS-0070497.     

On the Derived Categories and Quasitilted Algebras

In this paper, we present some results on the bounded derived category of Artin algebras, and in particular on the indecomposable objects in these categories, using homological properties. Given a complex X ^*, we consider the set and we define the application . We give relationships between some homological properties of an algebra and the respective application l. On the other hand, using homological properties again, we determine two subcategories of the bounded derived category of an algebra, which turn out to be the bounded derived categories of quasi-tilted algebras. As a consequence of these results we obtain new characterizations of quasi-tilted and quasi-tilted gentle algebras. Presented by Raymundo Bautista.