Trees, valuations, and the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel invariant (Q1114006)

The author introduces and studies HNN valuations on groups. These are functions v: \(G\to {\mathbb{R}}\cup \{\infty \}\) which satisfy axioms resembling those for valuations on rings. He relates them to decompositions of G as HNN-extensions. These valuations arise naturally in the classification of actions on \({\mathbb{R}}\)-trees whose hyperbolic length function is abelian. The author uses the HNN valuations to characterize the geometric invariant \(\Sigma\) of \textit{R. Bieri}, \textit{W. D. Neumann} and \textit{R. Strebel} [ibid. 90, 451-477 (1987; Zbl 0642.57002)]. This turns out to be useful for computations, as the author illustrates by examples. In particular, he computes \(\Sigma\) for one relator groups G, which yields a description of the set of finitely generated normal subgroups of G with abelian quotients.