Complete square complexes. (Q2468432)

A complete square complex (CSC) is a square complex with the property that the link of each vertex is isomorphic to a bipartite graph. The author constructs several examples of compact non-positively curved CSCs whose fundamental groups are small cancellation groups with prescribed residual properties. Namely, the examples show that the fundamental group of a CSC can be residually finite, a group with no non-trivial finite quotient, or not virtually torsion-free. All the examples are based on the common construction of a CSC \(X\) whose universal covering space contains the so-called anti-torus. The anti-torus in the universal covering space of a CSC is a plane aperiodically tiled by the preimages of the squares in \(X\). Also, it is shown using similar ideas that the question of whether or not word-hyperbolic groups are virtually torsion-free is equivalent to the question of whether or not word-hyperbolic groups are residually finite.