The angle question (Q5928499)

A CAT(0) group is a group which acts isometrically, properly discontinuously and cocompactly on a CAT(0) space. The ``angle question'' arises when one studies CAT(0) groups of the form \(\Gamma =G\times Z\), with \(G\) word hyperbolic. The author gives an example which shows that a group \(\Gamma\) of this form can act on a CAT(0) space without the subgroup \(G\times \{0\}\) determining a quasi-convex subset of \(X\), and the question is to see how bad can be the orbit of \(G\times \{0\}\) sitting inside \(X\). The author shows then that there is a well-defined ``angle'' between the orbits of \(G\times \{0\}\) and \(\{e\}\times Z\) and, as a consequence, that the limit set of the orbit of \(G\times \{0\}\) does not contain the endpoints of an axis for the \(Z\)-factor. For this, the author develops techniques for measuring angles between points in \(\partial X\), which are based on Alexandrov's notion of angles in a metric space, which use comparison of triangles.