Trees of hyperbolic spaces (Q6574038)

The book under review focuses on the study of metric spaces \(X\) which have the structure of trees of hyperbolic spaces. The study of this topic can be traced to the following result:\N\NTheorem. Suppose \(X= (\pi : X \rightarrow T)\) is a tree of hyperbolic metric spaces, where vertex and edge-spaces are uniformly hyperbolic, incidence maps of edge spaces into vertex spaces are uniformly quasiisometric and the space satisfies the hallway flaring condition. Then \(X\) is a hyperbolic metric space.\N\N\NThe proof of the theorem mentioned above is due to \textit{M. Bestvina} and \textit{M. Feighn} [J. Differ. Geom. 35, No. 1, 85--102 (1992; Zbl 0724.57029); addendum and correction ibid. 43, No. 4, 783--788 (1996; Zbl 0862.57027)]. The original proof of this theorem was by verifying that \(X\) satisfies the linear isoperimetric inequality. In this book, the authors give a new (and longer) proof under a weaker flaring assumption than the one made by Bestvina and Feighn [loc. cit.]; they name the weakened condition uniform (or, in another version, proper) flaring. Informally speaking, instead of requiring the exponential divergence of sections, the authors only require some rate of divergence, given by a uniform proper function of the arc-length parameter of \(I\) (see Theorem 2.58 for the precise statement).\N\NAs an application of their methods, the authors prove (see Theorem 8.46) the existence of Cannon-Thurston maps from Gromov-boundaries of subtrees of spaces \(Y \subset X\) to X, extending a result by \textit{M. Mitra} [J. Differ. Geom. 48, No. 1, 135--164 (1998; Zbl 0906.20023)], who proved the existence of Cannon-Thurston maps for the inclusion maps of vertex-spaces into \(X\). However, Mitra's description of geodesics stopped at geodesics connecting points in the same vertex-space (step 3 of the 6-step description that can be found in the book), leaving much of the work to be done in general and the authors analyze in detail the Cannon-Thurston laminations of these maps.\N\NThe book is divided into nine chapters whose contents the reviewer reports below.\N\NChapter 1. Preliminaries on metric geometry (graphs and trees, coarse geometric concepts, group actions, length structures and spaces, coarse Lipschitz maps and quasiisometries, coproducts, cones and cylinders, cones over metric spaces, approximation of metric spaces by metric graphs, hyperbolic metric spaces, combings and a characterization of hyperbolic spaces, hyperbolic cones, geometry of hyperbolic triangles, ideal boundaries, quasiconvex subsets, quasiconvex hulls, projections, images and preimages of quasiconvex subsets under projections, modified projection, projections and coarse intersections, quasiconvex subgroups and actions, cobounded pairs of subsets).\N\NChapter 2. Graphs of groups and trees of metric spaces (generalities, trees of spaces, coarse retractions, trees of hyperbolic spaces, flaring, hyperbolicity of trees of hyperbolic spaces, flaring for semidirect products of groups).\N\NChapter 3. Flow-spaces, ladders and their retractions (semicontinuous families of spaces, ladder, flow-spaces, retractions to bundles).\N\NChapter 4. Hyperbolicity of ladders (hyperbolicity of carpets, hyperbolicity of carpeted ladders, hyperbolicity of general ladders).\N\NChapter 5. Hyperbolicity of flow-spaces (Ubiquity of ladders in \(Fl_{k}(X_{u})\), projection of ladders, hyperbolicity of tripods families, hyperbolicity of flow-spaces).\N\NChapter 6. Hyperbolicity of trees of spaces: Putting everything together (hyperbolicity of flow-spaces of special interval-spaces, hyperbolicity of flow-spaces of general interval-spaces, conclusion of the proof).\N\NChapter 7. Description of geodesics (inductive description, characterization of vertical quasigeodesics, visual boundary and geodesics in acylindrical trees of spaces).\N\NChapter 8. Cannon-Thurston maps (generalities of Cannon-Thurston maps, cut-and-replace theorem, part I: consistency of points in vertex flow-spaces, part II: consistency in semispecial flow-spaces, part III: consistency in the general case, the existence of \(\mathrm{CT}\)-maps for subtrees of spaces, fibers of \(\mathrm{CT}\)-maps, boundary flows and \(\mathrm{CT}\) laminations, Cannon-Thurston lamination and ending laminations, conical limit points in trees of hyperbolic spaces, group-theoretic applications).\N\NChapter 9. Cannon-Thurston maps for relatively hyperbolic spaces (relative hyperbolicity, hyperbolicity of the electric space, trees of relatively hyperbolic spaces, Cannon-Thurston maps for trees of relatively hyperbolic spaces, Cannon-Thurston laminations for trees of relatively hyperbolic spaces).\N\NThe book contains very well done illustrations (as much as the subject allows) which help to facilitate the intuition of the concepts introduced.