Hilbert space compression for free products and HNN-extensions. (Q647629)

In his study of asymptotic invariants of infinite groups, \textit{M. Gromov} [Geometric group theory. Volume 2: Asymptotic invariants of infinite groups. Lond. Math. Soc. Lect. Note Ser. 182. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1993; Zbl 0841.20039)] introduced the notion of uniform (or coarse) embeddability of a metric space into Hilbert space. One defines a finitely generated group to be uniformly embeddable into a Hilbert space if the group with a word metric is; uniform embeddability is a quasi-isometry invariant, so this notion is well defined. The importance of uniform embeddability was highlighted by \textit{G. Yu}'s work [Invent. Math. 139, No. 1, 201-240 (2000; Zbl 0956.19004)] and \textit{G. Skandalis, J. L. Tu} and \textit{G. Yu}'s work [Topology 41, No. 4, 807-834 (2002; Zbl 1033.19003)] which proved the coarse Baum-Connes and Novikov conjectures, respectively, for uniformly embeddable groups. \textit{E. Guenter} and \textit{J. Kaminker} [J. Lond. Math. Soc., II. Ser. 70, No. 3, 703-718 (2004; Zbl 1082.46049)] introduced the notion of Hilbert space compression to measure how close an embedding is to being a quasi-isometry. In that paper they also show that the compression of a direct product of two groups is the minimum of the compression of each group. In the paper under review, the author gives upper and lower bounds for the compression of the free product of two groups and an HNN extension over a finite subgroup in terms of the compression of the factor groups. In fact, the author proves this result for groups that are not necessarily finitely generated with a word metric, but rather discrete with a metric induced by some length function. There is also a related notion of equivariant Hilbert space compression. In the case of the equivariant compression, the author gives explicit formulas for the compression of a free product amalgamated over a finite subgroup and an HNN extension over a finite subgroup.