Boundaries of right-angled Coxeter groups with manifold nerves

All abstract reflection groups act geometrically on non-positively curved geodesic spaces. Their natural space at infinity, consisting of (bifurcating) infinite geodesic rays emanating from a fixed base point, is called a boundary of the group.We will present a condition on right-angled Coxeter groups under which they have topologically homogeneous boundaries. The condition is that they have a nerve which is a connected closed orientable PL manifold.In the event that the group is generated by the reflections of one of Davis’ exotic open contractible n-manifolds (n?4), the group will have a boundary which is a homogeneous cohomology manifold. This group boundary can then be used to equivariantly Z-compactify the Davis manifold.If the compactified manifold is doubled along the group boundary, one obtains a sphere if n?5. The system of reflections extends naturally to this sphere and can be augmented by a reflection whose fixed point set is the group boundary. It will be shown that the fixed point set of each extended original reflection on the thus formed sphere is a tame codimension-one sphere.     

Boundary amenability of relatively hyperbolic groups

Let K be a fine hyperbolic graph and Γ be a group acting on K with finite quotient. We prove that Γ is exact provided that all vertex stabilizers are exact. In particular, a relatively hyperbolic group is exact if all its peripheral groups are exact. We prove this by showing that the group Γ acts amenably on a compact topological space. We include some applications to the theories of group von Neumann algebras and of measurable orbit equivalence relations.     

Minimal length elements in some double cosets of Coxeter groups

We study the minimal length elements in some double cosets of Coxeter groups and use them to study Lusztig's G-stable pieces and the generalization of G-stable pieces introduced by Lu and Yakimov. We also use them to study the minimal length elements in a conjugacy class of a finite Coxeter group and prove a conjecture in [M. Geck, S. Kim, G. Pfeiffer, Minimal length elements in twisted conjugacy classes of finite Coxeter groups, J. Algebra 229 (2) (2000) 570-600].     

Coxeter groups are virtually special

In this paper we prove that every finitely generated Coxeter group has a finite index subgroup that is the fundamental group of a special cube complex. Some consequences include: Every f.g. Coxeter group is virtually a subgroup of a right-angled Coxeter group. Every word-hyperbolic Coxeter group has separable quasiconvex subgroups.     

Finite quotients of groups of I-type

To every group of I-type, we associate a finite quotient group that plays the role that Coxeter groups play for Artin–Tits groups. Since groups of I-type are examples of Garside groups, this answers a question of D. Bessis in the particular case of groups of I-type. Groups of I-type are related to finite set-theoretical solutions of the Yang–Baxter equation. So, our result provides a new tool to attack the problem of the classification of finite set-theoretical solutions of the Yang–Baxter equation.     

Finite presentation of fibre products of metabelian groups

We show that if Γ is a finitely presented metabelian group, then the “untwisted” fibre product or pull-back P associated to any short exact sequence 1→N→Γ→Q→1 is again finitely presented. In contrast, if N and Q are abelian, then the analogous “twisted” fibre-product is not finitely presented unless Γ is polycyclic. Also a number of examples are constructed, including a non-finitely presented metabelian group P with finitely generated.     

Hyperbolic Coxeter groups of large dimension

We construct examples of Gromov hyperbolic Coxeter groups of arbitrarily large dimension. We also extend Vinbergs theorem to show that if a Gromov hyperbolic Coxeter group is a virtual Poincaré duality group of dimension n, then n 61.Coxeter groups acting on their associated complexes have been extremely useful source of examples and insight into nonpositively curved spaces over last several years. Negatively curved (or Gromov hyperbolic) Coxeter groups were much more elusive. In particular their existence in high dimensions was in doubt.In 1987 Gabor Moussong [M] conjectured that there is a universal bound on the virtual cohomological dimension of any Gromov hyperbolic Coxeter group. This question was also raised by Misha Gromov [G] (who thought that perhaps any construction of high dimensional negatively curved spaces requires nontrivial number theory in the guise of arithmetic groups in an essential way), and by Mladen Bestvina [B2].In the present paper we show that high dimensional Gromov hyperbolic Coxeter groups do exist, and we construct them by geometric or group theoretic but not arithmetic means.     

On regularity of finite reflection groups

We define a concept of “regularity” for finite unitary reflection groups, and show that an irreducible finite unitary reflection group of rank greater than 1 is regular if and only if it is a Coxeter group. Hence we get a characterization of Coxeter groups among all the irreducible finite reflection groups of rank greater than one. Received: 10 September 1999 / Revised version: 19 February 2000     

CAT(0) groups and Coxeter groups whose boundaries are scrambled sets

In this paper, we study CAT(0) groups and Coxeter groups whose boundaries are scrambled sets. Suppose that a group G acts geometrically (i.e. properly and cocompactly by isometries) on a proper CAT(0) space X. (Such a group G is called a CAT(0) group.) Then the group G acts by homeomorphisms on the boundary ∂X of X and we can define a metric d_∂X on the boundary ∂X. The boundary ∂X is called a scrambled set if, for any α,β∈∂X with α≠β, (1) lim sup{d_∂X(gα,gβ)∣g∈G}>0 and (2) lim inf{d_∂X(gα,gβ)∣g∈G}=0. We investigate when boundaries of CAT(0) groups (and Coxeter groups) are scrambled sets.     

Almost fixed-point-free automorphisms of soluble groups

Suppose G is either a soluble (torsion-free)-by-finite group of finite rank or a soluble linear group over a finite extension field of the rational numbers. We consider the implications for G if G has an automorphism of finite order m with only finitely many fixed points. For example, if m is prime then G is a finite extension of a nilpotent group and if m=4 then G is a finite extension of a centre-by-metabelian group. This extends the special cases where G is polycyclic, proved recently by Endimioni (2010); see [3].     

Morphic groups

A group G is called morphic if every endomorphism α:G→G for which Gα is normal in G satisfies G/Gα≅ker(α). This concept originated in a 1976 paper of Gertrude Ehrlich characterizing when the endomorphism ring of a module is unit regular. The concept has been extensively studied in module and ring theory, and this paper investigates the idea in the category of groups. After developing their basic properties, we characterize the morphic groups among the dihedral groups and the groups whose normal subgroups form a finite chain. We investigate when a direct product of morphic groups is again morphic, prove that a finite nilpotent group is morphic if and only if its Sylow subgroups are morphic, and present some results for the case where a p-group is morphic.     

A characterisation of virtually free groups

We prove that a finitely generated group G is virtually free if and only if there exists a generating set for G and k > 0 such that all k-locally geodesic words with respect to that generating set are geodesic. Received: 30 October 2006     

Algorithmically finite groups

We call a group Galgorithmically finite if no algorithm can produce an infinite set of pairwise distinct elements of G. We construct examples of recursively presented infinite algorithmically finite groups and study their properties. For instance, we show that the Equality Problem is decidable in our groups only on strongly (exponentially) negligible sets of inputs.     

On topologizable and non-topologizable groups

A group G   is called hereditarily non-topologizable if, for every H?G$H?G$, no quotient of H admits a non-discrete Hausdorff topology. We construct first examples of infinite hereditarily non-topologizable groups. This allows us to prove that c-compactness does not imply compactness for topological groups. We also answer several other open questions about c-compact groups asked by Dikranjan and Uspenskij. On the other hand, we suggest a method of constructing topologizable groups based on generic properties in the space of marked k-generated groups. As an application, we show that there exist non-discrete quasi-cyclic groups of finite exponent; this answers a question of Morris and Obraztsov.     

On a theorem of Rhemtulla on polycyclic groups

Let H be a subgroup of the polycyclic-by-finite group G and denote the automorphism group of G by Γ. We prove that there exists an integer d such that in the poset {?_γ∈∑H^γ:∑ a subset of Γ} of all intersections of images H^γ of H under Γ, chains have length at most d. In particular the poset satisfies the minimal condition. This extends and improves a theorem of A.H. Rhemtulla. We also provide a very different proof of Rhemtulla’s theorem.     

Periodic elements in Garside groups

Let G be a Garside group with Garside element Δ, and let Δ^m be the minimal positive central power of Δ. An element g∈G is said to be periodic if some power of it is a power of Δ. In this paper, we study periodic elements in Garside groups and their conjugacy classes.We show that the periodicity of an element does not depend on the choice of a particular Garside structure if and only if the center of G is cyclic; if g^k=Δ^ka for some nonzero integer k, then g is conjugate to Δ^a; every finite subgroup of the quotient group G/〈Δ^m〉 is cyclic.By a classical theorem of Brouwer, Kerékjártó and Eilenberg, an n-braid is periodic if and only if it is conjugate to a power of one of two specific roots of Δ². We generalize this to Garside groups by showing that every periodic element is conjugate to a power of a root of Δ^m.We introduce the notions of slimness and precentrality for periodic elements, and show that the super summit set of a slim, precentral periodic element is closed under any partial cycling. For the conjugacy problem, we may assume the slimness without loss of generality. For the Artin groups of type , , , and the braid group of the complex reflection group of type (e,e,n), endowed with the dual Garside structure, we may further assume the precentrality.     

Homotopy type of the boolean complex of a Coxeter system

In any Coxeter group, the set of elements whose principal order ideals are boolean forms a simplicial poset under the Bruhat order. This simplicial poset defines a cell complex, called the boolean complex. In this paper it is shown that, for any Coxeter system of rank n, the boolean complex is homotopy equivalent to a wedge of (n−1)-dimensional spheres. The number of such spheres can be computed recursively from the unlabeled Coxeter graph, and defines a new graph invariant called the boolean number. Specific calculations of the boolean number are given for all finite and affine irreducible Coxeter systems, as well as for systems with graphs that are disconnected, complete, or stars. One implication of these results is that the boolean complex is contractible if and only if a generator of the Coxeter system is in the center of the group.     

Relative hyperbolicity and Artin groups

This paper considers the question of relative hyperbolicity of an Artin group with regard to the geometry of its associated Deligne complex. We prove that an Artin group is weakly hyperbolic relative to its finite (or spherical) type parabolic subgroups if and only if its Deligne complex is a Gromov hyperbolic space. For a two-dimensional Artin group the Deligne complex is Gromov hyperbolic precisely when the corresponding Davis complex is Gromov hyperbolic, that is, precisely when the underlying Coxeter group is a hyperbolic group. For Artin groups of FC type we give a sufficient condition for hyperbolicity of the Deligne complex which applies to a large class of these groups for which the underlying Coxeter group is hyperbolic. The key tool in the proof is an extension of the Milnor-Svarc Lemma which states that if a group G admits a discontinuous, co-compact action by isometries on a Gromov hyperbolic metric space, then G is weakly hyperbolic relative to the isotropy subgroups of the action.