Higher dimensional isoperimetric functions in hyperbolic groups (Q1968581)

A concept related to hyperbolicity of groups is metabolicity, introduced by S.~Gersten. It is defined by the condition that the second \(\ell_\infty\)-cohomology \(H_{(\infty)}^2(G;A)\) of the group \(G\) vanishes for any Abelian coefficient group \(A\). \textit{S.~M.~Gersten} [Topology 37, No. 5, 1031-1072 (1998; Zbl 0933.20026)] gave several cohomological and geometric conditions equivalent to metabolicity, in particular that \(G\) admits a certain kind of combing called a combing with bounded areas. That is, in the universal cover \(X\) of some \(K(G,1)\)-complex with finite \(2\)-skeleton, there is a choice of cellular paths \(q_v\) from the basepoint of \(X\) to each vertex \(v\) such that for some \(T\) and every \(1\)-cell \(e\), the \(1\)-cycle \(q_{i(e)}+e-q_{t(e)}\) is the boundary of a \(2\)-chain with at most \(T\) cells. More recently, Gersten has proven that a finitely presented \(G\) is hyperbolic if and only if \(H_{(\infty)}^2(G;\ell_\infty)=0\). A related concept is \(\mathbb{R}\)-metabolicity, which is that \(H_{(\infty)}^2(G;V)\) vanishes for any normed real vector space \(V\). In this paper, the author develops characterizations of \(\mathbb{R}\)-metabolic groups, in particular \(G\) is \(\mathbb{R}\)-metabolic if and only if it is hyperbolic. In fact, the main technical theorem gives eleven conditions equivalent to hyperbolicity, including that \(G\) admits an \(\mathbb{R}\)-combing with bounded areas, and that \(G\) has a \(K(G,1)\)-complex with finitely many cells in each dimension and \(H_{(\infty)}^n(G,V)=0\) for all \(n\geq 2\). From earlier work of the author, these imply that \(G\) has a linear isoperimetric function for real cycles in each positive dimension. The author is careful to provide definitions and to sort out the credit to various authors for the different characterizations of hyperbolicity given in his paper. One of his main new contributions is a ``dandelion'' construction which is used to develop the \(\mathbb{R}\)-combings with bounded area. He closes with the following intuitive explanation: ``If \(c\) is a filling of a \(1\)-cycle \(a\), one may think of \(c\) as a `cone' over \(a\). Hyperbolicity then means that the area of the `cone' with \textit{some} vertex is linearly bounded by the length of the cycle \(a\). The cone vertices may differ for different cycles. Metabolicity says that all cycles can be `coned off' with respect to a cone vertex, \textit{one} for all cycles. It is rather surprising that over \(\mathbb{R}\) these two properties imply each other''.