Strongly contracting geodesics in outer space. (Q658414)

In 1986, Thurston introduced an asymmetric metric on Teichmüller space, which is now called `Thurston's asymmetric metric', and by some authors the `Lipschitz metric' on Teichmüller space. It was realized later on that there is similarly defined metric which can be defined on Outer Space. In the paper under review, the author studies the action of the so-called fully irreducible elements (which, in the theory of outer automorphisms of the free group acting on Outer Space, are the counterpart of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes in their action of Teichmüller space) with respect to this metric. He shows that these elements act by hyperbolic isometries with axes which are strongly contracting. As a corollary, he proves that the axes of fully irreducible automorphisms in the Cayley graph of the outer automorphism group of the free group are Morse, meaning that a quasi-geodesic with endpoints on the axis stays within a bounded distance from the axis. Reviewer's note: This metric was discovered by Thurston and should be called the Thurston metric. Although one of its definitions used Lipschitz maps, Lipschitz has nothing to do with the discovery of this metric, and there is no reason to call this metric the Lipschitz (rather than Thurston) metric.