Scl in free products (Q1631696)

This paper studies the stable commutator length in free products. Let $G$ be a group and $[G,G]$ its commutator subgroup. The \textit{commutator length} cl$(g)$ of $g\in[G,G]$ is the smallest number of commutators in $G$ whose product equals $g$ and the \textit{stable commutator length of $g$} is given by scl$(g)=\lim_{n\rightarrow \infty}$cl$(g^n)/n$. The \textit{spectrum} is the set of values that the stable commutator length takes and it turns out to be a group invariant that can be very difficult to compute. \textit{D. Calegary} showed that the stable commutator length scl is rational and computable in a free group [J. Am. Math. Soc. 22, No. 4, 941--961 (2009; Zbl 1225.57002)] and in free products of abelian groups [J. Topol. 4, No. 2, 305--326 (2011; Zbl 1223.57003)]. The author of the paper under review generalizes those results by proving that the stable commutator length is piecewise rational linear if it vanishes on each factor of the free product (Theorem A). Examples of groups with vanishing scl include amenable groups, irreducible lattices of higher rank Lie groups and some transformation groups as Homeo$^+(S^1)$. The second main result of this paper is about \textit{isometric embeddings}: injective group homomorphisms $\phi:G\rightarrow H$ for which scl$_H(\phi(c))=\mathrm{scl}_G(c)$ for all chains $c$ ($1$-boundaries in the real group homology of $G$, see precise notion in Definition 2.4). Theorem B states that isometric embeddings are preserved under taking free products. This isometric embedding theorem and the method of proof for Theorem A gives the author a way to compute the scl in free products obtaining generalizations and new proofs of old results (Section 5). Using these techniques the author also shows that the scl in free products of cyclic groups behaves in a piecewise quasirational way when the word is fixed but the orders of factors vary, a weaker version of a conjecture of \textit{A. Walker} [Exp. Math. 22, No. 3, 282--298 (2013; Zbl 1278.57001)], independently proved by \textit{T. Susse} [J. Topol. Anal. 7, No. 4, Article ID 693 (2015; Zbl 1350.57002)] with other methods.