No Arabic abstract
In this note, we announce the first results on quasi-isometric rigidity of non-nilpotent polycyclic groups. In particular, we prove that any group quasi-isometric to the three dimenionsional solvable Lie group Sol is virtually a lattice in Sol. We prove analogous results for groups quasi-isometric to $R ltimes R^n$ where the semidirect product is defined by a diagonalizable matrix of determinant one with no eigenvalues on the unit circle. Our approach to these problems is to first classify all self quasi-isometries of the solvable Lie group. Our classification of self quasi-isometries for $R ltimes R^n$ proves a conjecture made by Farb and Mosher in [FM4]. Our techniques for studying quasi-isometries extend to some other classes of groups and spaces. In particular, we characterize groups quasi-isometric to any lamplighter group, answering a question of de la Harpe [dlH]. Also, we prove that certain Diestel-Leader graphs are not quasi-isometric to any finitely generated group, verifying a conjecture of Diestel and Leader from [DL] and answering a question of Woess from [SW],[Wo1]. We also prove that certain non-unimodular, non-hyperbolic solvable Lie groups are not quasi-isometric to finitely generated groups. The results in this paper are contributions to Gromovs program for classifying finitely generated groups up to quasi-isometry [Gr2]. We introduce a new technique for studying quasi-isometries, which we refer to as coarse differentiation.
In this paper, which is the continuation of [EFW2], we complete the proof of the quasi-isometric rigidity of Sol and the lamplighter groups. The results were announced in [EFW1].
In this paper, we prove that certain spaces are not quasi-isometric to Cayley graphs of finitely generated groups. In particular, we answer a question of Woess and prove a conjecture of Diestel and Leader by showing that certain homogeneous graphs are not quasi-isometric to a Cayley graph of a finitely generated group. This paper is the first in a sequence of papers proving results announced in [EFW0]. In particular, this paper contains many steps in the proofs of quasi-isometric rigidity of lattices in Sol and of the quasi-isometry classification of lamplighter groups. The proofs of those results are completed in [EFW1]. The method used here is based on the idea of coarse differentiation introduced in [EFW0].
We give a complete list of the cobounded actions of solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups on hyperbolic metric spaces up to a natural equivalence relation. The set of equivalence classes carries a natural partial order first introduced by Abbott-Balasubramanya-Osin, and we describe the resulting poset completely. There are finitely many equivalence classes of actions, and each equivalence class contains the action on a point, a tree, or the hyperbolic plane.
The set of equivalence classes of cobounded actions of a group on different hyperbolic metric spaces carries a natural partial order. The resulting poset thus gives rise to a notion of the best hyperbolic action of a group as the largest element of this poset, if such an element exists. We call such an action a largest hyperbolic action. While hyperbolic groups admit largest hyperbolic actions, we give evidence in this paper that this phenomenon is rare for non-hyperbolic groups. In particular, we prove that many families of groups of geometric origin do not have largest hyperbolic actions, including for instance many 3-manifold groups and most mapping class groups. Our proofs use the quasi-trees of metric spaces of Bestvina--Bromberg--Fujiwara, among other tools. In addition, we give a complete characterization of the poset of hyperbolic actions of Anosov mapping torus groups, and we show that mapping class groups of closed surfaces of genus at least two have hyperbolic actions which are comparable only to the trivial action.
We say that a group has property $R_{infty}$ if any group automorphism has an infinite number of twisted conjugacy classes. Felshtyn and Goncalves prove that the solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups BS(1,m) have property $R_{infty}$. We define a solvable generalization $Gamma(S)$ of these groups which we show to have property $R_{infty}$. We then show that property $R_{infty}$ is geometric for these groups, that is, any group quasi-isometric to $Gamma(S)$ has property $R_{infty}$ as well.