Let $X$ be a geodesic metric space with $H_1(X)$ uniformly generated. If $X$ has asymptotic dimension one then $X$ is quasi-isometric to an unbounded tree. As a corollary, we show that the asymptotic dimension of the curve graph of a compact, oriented surface with genus $g ge 2$ and one boundary component is at least two.
In this article, we show that the Goldman-Iwahori metric on the space of all norms on a fixed vector space satisfies the Helly property for balls. On the non-Archimedean side, we deduce that most classical Bruhat-Tits buildings may be endowed with a natural piecewise $ell^infty$ metric which is injective. We also prove that most classical semisimple groups over non-Archimedean local fields act properly and cocompactly on Helly graphs. This gives another proof of biautomaticity for their uniform lattices. On the Archimedean side, we deduce that most classical symmetric spaces of non-compact type may be endowed with a natural piecewise $ell^infty$ metric which is coarsely Helly. We also prove that most classical semisimple groups over Archimedean local fields act properly and cocompactly on injective metric spaces. The only exception is the special linear group: if $n geq 3$ and $mathbb{K}$ is a local field, we show that $operatorname{SL}(n,mathbb{K})$ does not act properly and coboundedly on an injective metric space.
We show that the asymptotic dimension of a geodesic space that is homeomorphic to a subset in the plane is at most three. In particular, the asymptotic dimension of the plane and any planar graph is at most three.
The asymptotic dimension is an invariant of metric spaces introduced by Gromov in the context of geometric group theory. When restricted to graphs and their shortest paths metric, the asymptotic dimension can be seen as a large scale version of weak diameter colorings (also known as weak diameter network decompositions), i.e. colorings in which each monochromatic component has small weak diameter. In this paper, we prove that for any $p$, the class of graphs excluding $K_{3,p}$ as a minor has asymptotic dimension at most 2. This implies that the class of all graphs embeddable on any fixed surface (and in particular the class of planar graphs) has asymptotic dimension 2, which gives a positive answer to a recent question of Fujiwara and Papasoglu. Our result extends from graphs to Riemannian surfaces. We also prove that graphs of bounded pathwidth have asymptotic dimension at most 1 and graphs of bounded layered pathwidth have asymptotic dimension at most 2. We give some applications of our techniques to graph classes defined in a topological or geometrical way, and to graph classes of polynomial growth. Finally we prove that the class of bounded degree graphs from any fixed proper minor-closed class has asymptotic dimension at most 2. This can be seen as a large scale generalization of the result that bounded degree graphs from any fixed proper minor-closed class are 3-colorable with monochromatic components of bounded size. This also implies that (infinite) Cayley graphs avoiding some minor have asymptotic dimension at most 2, which solves a problem raised by Ostrovskii and Rosenthal.
The purpose of this note is to record a consequence, for general metric spaces, of a recent result of David Bate. We prove the following fact: Let $X$ be a compact metric space of topological dimension $n$. Suppose that the $n$-dimensional Hausdorff measure of $X$, $mathcal H^n(X)$, is finite. Suppose further that the lower n-density of the measure $mathcal H^n$ is positive, $mathcal H^n$-almost everywhere in $X$. Then $X$ contains an $n$-rectifiable subset of positive $mathcal H^n$-measure. Moreover, the assumption on the lower density is unnecessary if one uses recently announced results of Csornyei-Jones.