VH-ification (Q6191281)

A group \(G\) is flexible if for every finite set \(\{g_{1}, \ldots , g_{r} \}\) of nontrivial elements, there is a factor-preserving free action of \(G\) on the product of two trees, such that each \(g_{i}\) is diagonal in the sense that \(g_{i}\) has an axis that is not parallel to either factor. A free group \(F\) is flexible, as shown by the diagonal action of \(F\) on \(T\times T\), where \(F\) acts freely on the tree \(T\). All orientable surface groups are flexible as given a free action of \(\pi_{1}S\) on a product of trees one can precompose with a random automorphism of \(\pi_{1}S\) to arrange that various \(g_{i}\) are diagonal. The goal of the paper under review is to recognize the groups that act freely on the product of two trees. A first result is Theorem 1.1: Suppose \(A\) and \(B\) are flexible word-hyperbolic groups. Suppose \(C\subset A\) and \(C \subset B\) are embeddings of maximal cyclic subgroups. Then the amalgamated free product \(G=A\ast_{C} B\) is flexible. Theorem 1.1 actually shows that \(\pi_{1} S\) is flexible for any closed surface \(S\) with \(\chi(S)\leq 2\). It is easy to show that flexibility fails when \(S\) is the projective plane or the Klein-bottle. A second result is Theorem 1.4: Every elementarily free group that is hyperbolic (relative to \(\mathbb{Z}^{2}\) subgroups) is flexible. In particular (see Theorem 1.5), every word-hyperbolic elementarily free group acts freely on the product of two trees.