A note on spaces of asymptotic dimension one (Q2464780)

The shape asymptotic dimension of the metric space \(X\) is \textit{shape at most \(n\)} if for any \(D\geq 0\), there exists a covering \(\mathcal O\) of \(X\) such that \(\{\text{diam}\, O:O \in{\mathcal O}\}\) is bounded and for each \(x\in X\), the closed \(D\)-ball centered at \(x\) intersects at most \(n\) elements of \(\mathcal O\). Since two metric spaces which are quasi-isometric have the same asymptotic dimension and unbounded trees have asymptotic dimension one, all spaces quasi-isometric to unbounded trees also have asymptotic dimension one. In this paper, the authors prove that for a geodesic metric space \(X\) with \(H_1(X)\) is uniformly generated (that is, there is an \(L>0\) so that \(H_1(X)\) is generated by loops of length at most \(L\)), if \(X\) has asymptotic dimension one, then \(X\) is quasi-isometric to an unbounded tree. As an application of the result, they show that if \(S\) is a compact, oriented surface with genus \(g\geq 2\) and one boundary component, then the asymptotic dimension of the curve graph of \(S\) is at least two.