A Cartan-Hadamard type result for relatively hyperbolic groups (Q2634861)

In the present paper, the authors prove that if a finitely presented group has an asymptotic cone which is tree-graded with respect to a precise set of pieces then it is relatively hyperbolic. Before stating the main result we give the necessary terminology and definitions referring to the paper for details. A non-principal ultrafilter is a finitely additive map \(\omega : \mathcal{P} (\mathbb{N}) \longrightarrow \{ 0,1\}\) which vanishes on every finite subset of \(\mathbb{N}\) and \(\omega (\mathbb{N}) = 1\). Let \((X_{n}, e_{n})\) be a sequence of pointed metric spaces. The partial product is defined by \(\prod _{\omega }X_{n} = \{ (x_{n})\in \prod _n X_{n}\mid \text{ there exists a number } M \text{ with the property } \omega (\{ n\in \mathbb{N} \mid |x_{n}-e_{n}| \leq M\})=1\}\). This set is endowed with a pseudo-metric given by the formula \(|x-y|=\lim _{\omega} |x_{n}-y_{n}|\) for \(x=(x_n), y=(y_{n})\in \prod _{\omega }X_{n}\). For a sequence \((u_{n})\) of real numbers, \(\lim _{\omega }u_{n}=l\) is defined by \newline \(\omega (\{n\in \mathbb{N} : |u_{n}-l|\leq \varepsilon\})=1\}\) for every \(\varepsilon >0\). Let \((X_{n},e_n)\) be a sequence of pointed metric spaces and \(\omega\) a non-partial ultrafilter. The \(\omega\)-limit of \((X_{n},e_n)\), denoted by \(\lim _{\omega }(X_{n},e_n)\) (or \(\lim _{\omega }(X_{n})\)), is the quotient of \(\prod _{\omega }X_{n}\) by the equivalence relation which identifies two points at distance zero. The pseudo-distance on \(\prod _{\omega }X_{n}\) induces a distance on \(\lim _{\omega }(X_{n},e_n)\). Let \(\omega \) be a fixed non-principal ultrafilter. For every \(n\in\mathbb{N}\) let \((X_{n},e_{n})\) be a pointed geodesic metric space and \(\mathcal{Y}_{n}\) a family of subspaces of \(X_{n}\). The \((X_{n},e_{n})\) is said to be sparsely tree-graded with respect to \((\mathcal{Y}_{n})\), if the following assertions hold. {\parindent=0.9cm \begin{itemize} \item[(\(T^{\omega}_{1}\))] For every \((Y_{n}),(Y_{n}^{\prime })\in \prod_{n\in \mathbb{N}}\mathcal{Y}_{n}\), if \(Y_{n}\not =_{\omega}Y_{n}^{\prime}\), then the subsets \(\lim_{\omega }Y_{n}\) and \(\lim_{\omega }Y_{n}^{\prime}\) of \(\lim _{\omega} (X_{n},e_{n})\) have at most one common point. \item[(\(T^{\omega}_{2}\))] Every simple closed curve in \(\lim _{\omega}(X_{n}, e_{n})\) is contained in some \(\lim _{\omega}Y_{n}\). \end{itemize}} Let \(X\) be a metric space and \(\mathcal{Y}\) be a collection of subspaces of \(X\). The space \(X\) is said to be sparsely asymptotically tree-graded with respect to \(\mathcal{Y}\), if there exists a non-principal ultrafilter \(\omega\), a sequence \(d=(d_{n})\) of numbers diverging to infinity and a sequence \(e=(e_{n})\) of base points of \(X\) such that \((X_{n}, e_{n})\) is sparsely tree-graded with respect to \((\mathcal{Y}_{n})\), where for every \(n\in \mathbb{N}\) \(X_{n}=(1/d_{n})X\) is the space \(X\) rescaled by \(d_{n}\) and \(\mathcal{Y}_{n}=\{(1/d_{n})Y \mid Y\in \mathcal{Y}\}\) is the image in \(X_{n}\) of the collection \(\mathcal{Y}\). Let \(\xi \in \partial X\). A subset \(Z\) of \(X\) is a horoball centered at \(\xi\) if there exist a Busemann function \(h\) about \(\xi\) and a constant \(\alpha \geq 0\) such that for every \(x\in Z\), \(h(x)\leq \alpha \) and for every \(x\in X \setminus Z\), \(h(x)\geq -\alpha \). There are many equivalent definitions of hyperbolic groups. Here, we quote the more appropriate for the purposes of the paper. Definition. Let \(X\) be a \(\delta\)-hyperbolic proper geodesic space and \(G\) a finitely generated group acting properly by isometries on \(X\). Assume that \(X/G\) is quasi-isometric to a wedge of \(m\) rays. Let \(\gamma _{1}, \gamma _{2},\dots,\gamma _{m}\) be geodesic rays in \(X/G\) tending to \(m\) distinct points in the boundary at infinity of \(X/G\). For each \(j\in \{1,2,\dots ,m\}\), choose a lift \(\tilde{\gamma}_{j}\) of \(\gamma _{j}\) in \(X\) and denote by \(\xi _{j}\in \partial X\) the endpoint at infinity defined by \(\tilde{\gamma}_{j}\). Let \(H_{j}\) be the stabilizer of \(\xi _{j}\). The group \(G\) is said to be hyperbolic relative to \(\{H_{1},\dots ,H_{m}\}\) if there exists a collection of open horoballs \(Z_{1},\dots ,Z_{m}\) in \(X\) centered at \(\xi _{1},\dots ,\xi _{m}\), respectively, with the following properties. {\parindent=0.6cm\begin{itemize}\item[(i)] For every \(i,j\in \{1,2,\dots ,m\}\), for every \(g\in G\), if \(gZ_{i}\cap Z_{j}\) is not empty, then \(i=j\) and \(g\in H_{j}\). \item [(ii)] If \(U\) is the union of the \(Z_{1},\dots ,Z_{m}\) and their translates, then \(G\) acts co-compactly on \(X\setminus U\). \end{itemize}} Let \(Y\) be a subset of a metric space \(X\). If every two points of \(Y\) can be joined by a rectifiable path contained in \(Y\), then \(Y\) is said to be rectifiably path connected. If in addition there exists \(\varepsilon >0\) such that for every \(y\in Y\) the natural embedding \(Y\hookrightarrow X\) induces an isometry from \(B_{\varepsilon}(y)\) onto its image, then it is said that \(Y\) is locally indistorted. Let \(\varepsilon >0\). Let \(\mathcal{Y}\) be a collection of subspaces of a metric space \(X\). It is said that \(X\) is \(\varepsilon\)-simply connected relative to \(\mathcal{Y}\) if any based loop is homotopic to a product of loops \(\gamma _{1}\cdot \gamma _{2}\cdots \gamma _{m}\) such that for every \(i\in \{1,2,\dots ,m\}\), \(\gamma _{i}\) is freely homotopic to a loop which has either diameter at most \(\varepsilon\) or is contained in one of the subsets of \(\mathcal{Y}\). Now, we are in the position to state the main theorem of this paper. Theorem A. (Theorem 2.21 in the paper). Let \(G\) be a group acting properly co-compactly by isometries on a proper length space \(X\). Let \(\mathcal{Y}\) be a \(G\)-invariant collection of closed locally undistorted subsets of \(X\) such that \(X\) is \(\varepsilon\)-simply connected relative to \(\mathcal{Y}\) for some \(\varepsilon >0\) and \(\mathcal{Y} / G\) is finite. We identify \(\mathcal{Y} / G\) with a set of representatives of the \(G\)-orbits of the elements of \(\mathcal{Y}\). If \(X\) is sparsely asymptotically tree-graded with respect to \(\mathcal{Y} \), then \(G\) is hyperbolic relative to \(\{ \mathrm{Stab}(Y)\mid Y\in \mathcal{Y} / G\}\). The proof has two main steps. Firstly, a weaker version (Theorem 2.3 in the paper) is proved where an additional assumption about the behaviour of \(\mathcal{Y}\) with respect to an ultrafilter is used. After that, is proved that, without loss of generality, the collection \(\mathcal{Y}\) can be substituted by another family satisfying the additional hypothesis. As an example of Theorem A, the following theorem is obtained. Theorem B (Theorem 1.6 in the paper). Let \(G\) be a finitely generated group with subgroups \(\{H_{1},\dots ,H_{k}\}\). Assume that \(G\) is finitely presented relatively to \(\{H_{1},\dots ,H_{k}\}\). If \(G\) is sparsely asymptotically tree-graded with respect to \(\{H_{1},\dots ,H_{k}\}\) then \(G\) is hyperbolic relative to \(\{H_{1},\dots ,H_{k}\}\). This theorem positively answers the following question of Sapir. Question. Let \(G\) be a finitely presented group and \(H\) a subgroup of \(G\). If \(G\) is is sparsely asymptotically tree-graded with respect to \(H\), is \(G\) hyperbolic relative to \(H\)? It also provides a generalization of the following theorem of Kapovich and Kleiner. Theorem. (Theorem 8.1in [\textit{A. Y. Ol'shanskii} et al., Geom. Topol. 13, No. 4, 2051--2140 (2009; Zbl 1243.20056)]) Let \(G\) be a finitely presented group. If one asypmtotic cone of \(G\) is an \(\mathbb{R}\)-tree, then \(G\) is hyperbolic.