Analogues of Cayley graphs for topological groups (Q2471031)

The aim of this paper is to present a construction of a graph for compactly generated totally disconnected locally compact groups that can be used in a similar way as the Cayley graph is used in the study of finitely generated groups. This construction allows to apply the machinery of geometric group theory to this class of groups. These notions are illustrated by looking at the theory of ends of groups and groups of polynomial growth. This construction will yield a group action on a graph, which is called a ``rough Cayley graph'', which is unique up to quasi-isometry. In such a way the geometric structure (the graph) is uniquely determined (up to quasi-isometry) by the algebraic structure. In the first section definitions and background material on permutation groups, graphs and topological spaces are presented. The construction of a rough Cayley graph is presented in Section 2. It starts with a compactly generated totally disconnected locally compact group \(G\), then a compact open subgroup \(U\) and a finite set \(\{s_1,\dots ,s_n\}\) are chosen, such that \(U\cup \{s_1,\dots ,s_n\}\) generates \(G\), and these are used to construct a graph \(X\). \(X\) is locally finite and connected and the group \(G\) acts transitively on \(X\), called a rough Cayley graph for \(G\). It is shown that any two such graphs for the group \(G\) are quasi-isometric; if \(G\) is finitely generated and the compact open subgroup \(U\) used in this construction is the trivial group, then this construction yields a usual Cayley graph of \(G\). In Sections 3 and 4 the authors illustrate the use of this concept; the space of ends of compactly generated totally disconnected locally compact groups is defined and an analogue of Stalling's ends theorem is proved for groups with infinitely many ends. The authors focus on the concept of accessibility. The action of group elements on a rough Cayley graph is investigated and it is shown how this action can be used to divide \(G\) into three disjoint classes (elliptic, parabolic, hyperbolic). The concept of ends of pairs of groups is related to the rough ends. A result due to \textit{M. J. Dunwoody} and \textit{M. A. Roller} [Bull. Lond. Math. Soc. 25, No. 1, 29--36 (1993; Zbl 0737.20012)] is deduced on this way. In Section 4 the growth of the graph \(X\) is related to the growth of the topological group \(G\) by obtaining a version of Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth for compactly generated totally disconnected locally compact groups. It is shown, e. g., that a connected finite transitive graph has either 0,1 or 2 ends, or \(\Omega X\) is a Cantor set. The number of ends is 0 only when the graph is finite.