Hyperbolic structures on Houghton groups
The paper under review studies the poset \(\mathcal H(G)\) of hyperbolic structures of a group \(G\), introduced as the set of generating sets whose Cayley graphs are hyperbolic, modulo the equivalence relation of mutual domination. The authors focus on Houghton groups \(H_n\), defined as groups of quasi-automorphisms of a disjoint union of \(n\) rays acting eventually as translations on each ray and recall that \(H_n\) is a locally finite-by-\(\mathbb Z^{n-1}\) group with commutator subgroup equal to the finitely supported permutations.\N\NThe main result is Theorem~1.1, which shows that for every integer \(n\ge2\) the Houghton group \(H_n\) admits exactly \(n\) focal hyperbolic structures, explicitly described as \([\mathrm{Fix}(R_i)\cup T]\) for \(1\le i\le n\), where \(T=\{t_{r,s}\mid 1\le r,s\le n\}\). These focal structures are pairwise non-comparable and each of them dominates a unique lineal hyperbolic structure. The theorem also distinguishes the cases \(n=2\), where there is a single lineal hyperbolic structure and \(n\ge3\), where there are uncountably many pairwise non-comparable lineal hyperbolic structures. The proof reduces the problem to the study of second partial Houghton subgroups \(H_n(I)\) with \(|I|=2\), whose focal hyperbolic structures are classified in Theorem~3.2 using confining automorphisms and the description of \(H_n(I)\) as a semidirect product \(S_\infty\rtimes\mathbb Z\).\N\NAs an application, the authors address the problem of realizing prescribed finite numbers of focal hyperbolic structures. Theorem~1.3 shows that for all integers \(n>k+1\) there exists a finite extension of \(H_n\) having exactly \(k\) focal hyperbolic structures. This is obtained by considering finite extensions \(H_n(G)=H_n\rtimes G\) for subgroups \(G\le\mathrm{Sym}(n)\) and relating the number of focal hyperbolic structures to the number of fixed points of the action of \(G\) on \(\{1,\dots,n\}\). In particular, this yields the first example of a group admitting exactly one focal hyperbolic structure, answering completely Problem~8.5 posed by \textit{C.~Abbott} et al. in [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 19, No. 4, 1747--1835 (2019; Zbl 1481.20165)].
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