On the Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants and limit groups over Droms RAAGs (Q2144374)

The Bieri-Neumann-Strebel-Renz invariants of a group \(G\) is a collection of open sets \(\Sigma^n(G)\) of the sphere \(S(G)=\mathrm{Hom}(G,\mathbb{R})/\mathbb{R}_+^*\) of characters on \(G\). They are a tool to control when a subgroup containing the commutator subgroup is of type \(FP_n\) or is finitely presented. For instance, \(\Sigma^1(G)\) is the set of characters \(\chi\) such that, \(\chi^{-1}([0,\infty))\) is connected as an induced subgraph of the Cayley graph. The groups studied in the paper are a variation of limit groups over the free group, where the base group is no more a free group, but a specific type of right angled Artin group (RAAG) introduced by \textit{C. Droms} [J. Algebra 110, 519--522 (1987; Zbl 0625.20026)]. A Droms RAAG is a RAAG such that all its finitely generated subgroups are RAAGs. As Droms proved, these are the RAAGs whose defining graph has no induced subgraph that is a square or a segment of length 3. A limit group over Droms RAAGs is a finitely generated group \(G\) such that for any finite subset \(F\subset G\), there exists a Droms RAAG \(\Gamma\) and a morphism \(G\to \Gamma\) that is injective in restriction to \(F\) (and one can prove that one can take a fixed \(\Gamma\) for all \(F\)). The authors prove that if \(G\) is a limit group over Droms RAAGs with trivial center, then \(\Sigma^n(G)=\emptyset\) for all \(n\geq 1\). When \(G\) has non-trivial center, for all \(n\geq 1\), \(\Sigma^n(G)\) is the set of characters that do not vanish on \(Z(G)\). One can also consider the larger class of groups that are residually Droms RAAGs, where the only question is whether any non-trivial element of \(G\) survives under some morphism to a Droms RAAG \(\Gamma\). Such groups can be written as a subdirect product of limit groups over Droms RAAGs. The authors prove that if a group \(G\) is finitely presented and a full subdirect product of limit groups over Droms RAAGs \(G\subset L_1\times \dots\times L_m\), then \(\Sigma^1(H)\) is the complement of the set of characters that vanish on the kernel of one of the projections. For such a finitely presented subdirect product \(G\subset L_1\times \dots\times L_m\), it is also proved that the projection to \(L_{i_1}\times\dots\times L_{i_n}\) of \(G_\chi=\{g\in G\mid \chi(g)\geq 0\}\) agrees with the projection of \(G\).