Generic length functions on countable groups (Q6051020)

Let \(G\) be a countable group endowed with the topology of pointwise convergence and let \(L(G)\) denote the space of integer-valued length functions on \(G\). For every \(\ell \in L(G)\) the authors define the Cayley graph with vertex set \(G\) where two vertices \(a, b \in G\) are connected by an edge if and only if \(\ell(a^{-1}b)=1\). A group \(G\) satisfies a non-trivial mixed identity if there exists a nontrivial element \(w\) of the free product \(G \ast \mathbb{Z}\) such that \(\alpha(w)=1\) for every homomorphism \(\alpha : G \ast \mathbb{Z} \rightarrow G\) satisfying \(\alpha(g)=g\) for all \( \in G\). If \(G\) does not satisfy any non-trivial mixed identity, it is said to be mixed-identity free (or \(\mathrm{MIF}\) for brevity). Let \(U\) be the universal graph for isometric embeddings, whose existence was proved in [\textit{L. S. Moss}, Discrete Math. 102, No. 3, 287--305 (1992; Zbl 0754.03028)] (\(U\) can be defined as the unique countable graph satisfying the following properties: \(U\) is connected, isometrically embeds every finite connected graph and any isometry between any two finite sets of vertices extends to an automorphism of \(U\). The first result in this paper is Theorem 1.5: For any countable \(\mathrm{MIF}\) group \(G\), a generic length function on \(G\) is a word length and the corresponding Cayley graph is isomorphic to the Moss graph \(U\). If \(\ell_{1}, \ell_{2} \in L(G)\), define \(\ell_{1} \preccurlyeq \ell_{2}\) if the ratio \(\ell_{1}/\ell_{2}\) is bounded on \(G\setminus \{1\}\). Further, \(\ell_{1}\) and \(\ell_{2}\) are (bi-Lipschitz) equivalent if \(\ell_{1} \preccurlyeq \ell_{2}\) and \(\ell_{2} \preccurlyeq \ell_{1}\). The following three interesting results are then proved in the paper under review. Theorem 1.7: Let \(G\) be a countable group. Every comeager subset of \(L(G)\) contains \(2^{\aleph_{0}}\) pairwise \( \preccurlyeq\)-incomparable (in particular, non-equivalent) length functions. Theorem 1.9: Suppose that \(G\) is a countable \(\mathrm{MIF}\) group. Then \(L(G)\) contains a comeager elementary equivalence class. Theorem 1.10: For every countable \(\mathrm{MIF}\) group \(G\), the conjugacy action of \(G\) on \(L(G)\) is topologically transitive.