Hyperbolicity of the ray graph and quasimorphism on a big modular group (Q258898)

The article under review carries out a program suggested by Danny Calegari on a blog post [``Big mapping class groups and dynamics'' (2009)] aiming at the study of the mapping class group \(\Gamma\) of the plane minus a Cantor set. By uniformisation, the plane minus a Cantor set admits a hyperbolic structure. For hyperbolic surfaces of finite type, the curve graph has proven to be a strong tool in the study of the algebra and the geometry of the mapping class group. For the plane minus a Cantor set, the curve graph fails to have the necessary properties, as it is of diameter~\(2\). In his blog post, Calegari suggests to consider the ray graph \(X_r\) instead. It has a vertex for each isotopy class of simple rays from a point of the Cantor set to infinity, and two vertices are joined by an edge if the corresponding rays can be represented disjointly. The article under review very nicely translates many results on the curve graph in the finite type setting to the ray graph of the plane minus a Cantor set. Firstly, an explicit infinite sequence of rays \(\alpha_k\) is constructed and shown to be a geodesic in the ray graph, implying that the diameter of the ray graph is infinite. In order to construct this infinite sequence of rays, unique geodesic representatives (with respect to the hyperbolic structure) are used to associate a unique coding sequence to each ray. Secondly, the ray graph is shown to be \(\delta\)-hyperbolic. The proof applies the technique of unicorn paths (developed by \textit{S. Hensel} et al. to show uniform \(\delta\)-hyperbolicity in the finite type setting [J.\ Eur.\ Math.\ Soc.~17, No.~4, 755--762 (2015, Zbl 1369.57018)]) to a related graph \(X_\infty\) into which the ray graph embeds quasi-isometrically. Thirdly, an explicit element of \(\Gamma\) which acts hyperbolically on the ray graph is exhibited. More precisely, this element acts by translation on the previously constructed geodesic axis \(\alpha_k\). Using a construction due to \textit{K. Fujiwara} [Proc.\ Lond.\ Math.\ Soc., III.\ Ser.~76, No.~1, 70--94 (1998, Zbl 0891.20027)], this leads to an explicit non-trivial quasi-morphism on \(\Gamma\). Furthermore, building on a strategy by \textit{M. Bestvina} and \textit{K. Fujiwara} [Geom.\ Topol.~6, 69--89 (2002, Zbl 1021.57001)], the space of quasi-morphism classes on \(\Gamma\) is shown to be of infinite dimension.