CAT(0) HNN-extensions with non-locally connected boundary (Q5928498)

The authors prove the following Theorem: Let \(G\) be a finitely generated group, let \(A\) and \(B\) be finitely generated subgroups of \(G\), let \(\alpha\colon A\to B\) be an isomorphism and let \(G^*\) be the HNN extension \(\langle G,t:t^{-1}at=\alpha(a),\;a\in A\rangle\). Suppose that \(G^*\) acts geometrically on a CAT(0) space \(X\), such that the following three conditions are satisfied: (1) \(A\not=G\not=B\). (2) \(Ax_0\) is quasi-convex in \(X\) for some \(x_0\in X\). (3) There exists \(s\in G^*\) such that \(s^n\notin A\) for all \(n\not=0\) and \(sAs^{-1}\subset A\). Then \(\partial X\) is not locally connected. The authors study a particular example of an HNN extension arising from parabolic semidirect products of \(F_2\) and \(\mathbb{Z}\). They show that all such semidirect products act on a CAT(0) space that they construct, and they explicitly identify a point of non-local connectivity in the boundary of this space, as a guide to reading the proof of the theorem above.