Random rigidity in the free group. (Q351712)

Let \(G\) be a group and \([G,G]\) its commutator subgroup. The commutator length of an element \(g\in [G,G]\), denoted \(\mathrm{cl}(g)\), is the least number of commutators whose product is \(g\). The stable commutator length, denoted \(\mathrm{scl}(G)\), is the limit \(\mathrm{scl}(g)=\lim_{n\to\infty}\mathrm{cl}(g^n)/n\). Let \(C_1(G)\) be the real vector space with basis the elements of \(G\) and let \(B_1(G)\) be the kernel of \(C_1(G)\to H_1(G;\mathbb R)\). It is a fact that scl extends by linearity and continuity to a pseudo-norm on \(B_1(G)\) and vanishes on the subspace \(\langle g-hgh^{-1},g^n-ng\rangle\). So scl descends to a pseudo-norm on the quotient \(B^H_1(G)=B_1(G)/\langle g-hgh^{-1},g^n-ng\rangle\). In this paper the authors prove a rigidity theorem for the geometry of the unit ball in random finite dimensional subspaces of \(B^H_1(F)\), where \(F\) is a free group. Theorem 1. Let \(F\) be a free group of rank \(k\) and let \(u\) be a random reduced element of length \(n\), conditioned to lie in the commutator subgroup \([F,F]\). Then for any \(\varepsilon>0\) and \(C>1\), \[ |\mathrm{scl}(u)\log(n)/n-\log(2k-1)/6|\leq\varepsilon \] with probability \(1-O(n^{-c})\). In more geometric language, they prove a stronger result on the geometry of the unit ball in the scl norm in a random subspace. Theorem 2. Let \(F\) be a free group of rank \(k\) and, for a fixed \(d\), let \(u_1,u_2,\ldots,u_d\) be independent random reduced elements of length \(n_1,n_2,\ldots,n_d\) conditioned to lie in \([F,F]\), where without loss of generality it is assumed \(n_1\geq n_i\) for all \(i\). Let \(V\) be the subspace of \(B^H_1(F)\) spanned by the \(u_i\). Then for any \(\varepsilon>0\), \(C>1\) and real numbers \(t_i\), \[ |\mathrm{scl}(\sum t_iu_i)\log(n_1)/n_1-\log(2k-1)(\sum|t_i|n_i)/6n_1|\leq\varepsilon \] with probability \(1-O(n_1^{-C})\). Here `random' means with respect to the uniform probability on the finite set of reduced words of length \(n\) in \([F,F]\) (when \(n\) is even) and the expression \(O(g(x))\), for the function \(g(x)\), denotes some function \(f(x)\) satisfying \(f(x)\leq C|g(x)|\) for some positive constant \(C\) and for all \(x\gg 0\). Conjectural generalization to hyperbolic groups and manifolds is discussed in an appendix.