Stable actions of groups on real trees (Q1899735)

The structure of groups acting on simplicial trees is well-understood, thanks to the theory of Bass-Serre. For groups acting on real trees, the main structure theorem (which had been conjectured by J. Morgan and P. Shalen) has been proved by E. Rips and states that a finitely generated group acting freely on a real tree is a free product of surface groups and free abelian groups. In this paper, the authors give a proof of Rips' theorem. They obtain also several related new results, some of them generalizing work of Morgan-Shalen, Morgan, Paulin and the first author. The results include the following: Let \(G\) be a finitely presented group with a nontrivial, stable and minimal action on a tree \(T\). Then either (i) \(G\) splits over an extension \(E\)-by-cyclic where \(E\) fixes an arc on \(T\), or (ii) \(T\) is a line, and in this case \(G\) splits over an extension of the kernel of the action by a finitely generated free abelian group. Let \(G\) be a word hyperbolic group. Suppose \(T\) is a virtually cyclic \(G\)-tree. Then, \(G\) splits over a virtually cyclic subgroup. -- Let \(G\) be finitely presented and not virtually abelian. If \(G\) does not split over a virtually abelian subgroup then the space of conjugacy classes of discrete and faithful representations of \(G\) into \(\text{SO} (n, 1)\) is compact for all \(n\). -- If the outer automorphism group of the word hyperbolic group \(G\) is infinite then \(G\) splits over a virtually cyclic group. The paper includes also structure theorems for measured foliations on 2-complexes.