On the residual finiteness of outer automorphisms of hyperbolic groups. (Q2494100)

The automorphism \(f\) of the group \(G\) is called conjugating automorphism if \(f(g)\) is a conjugate of \(g\) for every \(g\in G\). The conjugating automorphisms of a group \(G\) form a normal subgroup \(\text{Conj}(G)\) of its automorphism group \(\Aut(G)\) containing the group of inner automorphisms \(\text{Inn}(G)\). The group \(G\) is called conjugacy separable if for any two non-conjugate elements \(g,h\in G\) there is a finite quotient group of \(G\) in which the images of \(g,h\) are non-conjugate. Using ideas developed by F. Paulin and M. Bestvina, the authors show that for every hyperbolic group \(G\) the quotient group \(\text{Conj}(G)/\text{Inn}(G)\) is finite. This result is applied for the proof of the main theorem of the paper. The theorem states that every virtually torsion-free subgroup of a conjugacy separable hyperbolic group is residually finite. It follows as corollaries that the following groups are residually finite: the outer automorphism group \(\text{Out}(G)\) of a finitely generated free-by-finite group and of a finitely generated Fuchsian group \(G\) and the mapping class group \(\text{Mod}_S\) of a hyperbolic 2-orbifold \(S\) with finite volume.