Embeddability between right-angled Artin groups.. (Q1945755)

The authors study the problem of deciding whether, given two right-angled Artin groups defined in terms of the associated graphs, the first embeds into the second. The main results of the paper are a criterion and a sufficient condition for such an embedding to exist in terms of properties of the associated graphs and some other graphs constructed from these. Several situations in which the criterion is in fact a characterisation are also provided. Different corollaries are also discussed. Among these, it is worth mentioning the fact that there is no universal right-angled Artin group of dimension \(2\), that is for any given right-angled Artin group of cohomological dimension \(2\) there is another right-angled Artin group of the same dimension which does not embed in the given one. A fundamental observation to prove the results of the paper is that right-angled Artin groups are subgroups of mapping class groups so that tools like the Nielsen-Thurston classification of mapping classes, or the curve complex can be exploited in this context.