Tame combing and almost convexity conditions. (Q658323)

The paper under review studies the relationship between convexity conditions and tame combing conditions on a Cayley complex corresponding to a given group. It also significantly expands the understanding of the Cayley complex of Thompson's group \(F\) with respect to the standard finite two-generator presentation. In particular, the authors give the first examples of groups admitting a tame combing with radial tameness with respect to any choice of finite presentation that are not minimally almost convex on a standard generating set by explicitly constructing such combings for \(F\) and the Baumslag-Solitar groups \(BS(1,p)\) with \(p\geq 3\). For a finitely generated group \(G\) with fixed generating set \(A\), almost convexity conditions measure how close balls in the Cayley graph \(\text{Cay}(G,A)\) are to being convex. More specifically, the pair \((G,A)\) is said to satisfy the almost convexity condition \(AC_f\) for a function \(f\colon\mathbb N\to\mathbb R_+\) if there is an \(r_0\in\mathbb N\) such that for every pair of points \(a\) and \(b\) in the sphere \(S(r)\) of radius \(r\) centered at the identity with \(d_A(a,b)\leq 2\), and every natural number \(r>r_0\) there is a path inside the ball \(B(r)\) from \(a\) to \(b\) of length no more than \(f(r)\). Clearly every group satisfies this condition with \(f(r)=2r\), since one can simply go from \(a\) to the identity and then from there to \(b\). Thus, the weakest non-trivial notion of almost convexity corresponds to \(f(r)=2r-1\). On the other hand, the most restrictive class of AC conditions correspond to constant functions. It was shown [\textit{M. Elder} and \textit{S. Hermiller}, J. Group Theory 8, No. 2, 239-266 (2005; Zbl 1134.20049)] that these notions are not quasi-isometry invariants. A \(0\)-combing of a group \(G\) is a choice of a path in \(\text{Cay}(G,A)\) from the identity to \(g\) for each \(g\in G\). When \(G=\langle A\mid R\rangle\) is finitely presented, we consider the Cayley complex obtained by attaching \(2\) cells to \(\text{Cay}(G,A)\) corresponding to the finite set of defining relations \(R\). To define a \(1\)-combing, we extend a \(0\)-combing continuously through the \(1\)-skeleton of the Cayley complex. A radial tameness function \(\rho\colon\mathbb Q\to\mathbb R_+\) is satisfied by a \(1\)-combing if once the combing leaves the ball of radius \(\rho(q)\) it never returns to the ball of radius \(q\). It was shown that satisfying the radial tameness condition \(TC_\rho\) is an invariant of quasi-isometry and so it is a group property. There are several results relating \(AC_f\) and \(TC_\rho\). For example, \textit{S. Hermiller} and \textit{J. Meier} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 353, No. 3, 943-962 (2001; Zbl 0988.20026)] showed that \(AC_f\) with \(f\) sublinear implies \(TC_\rho\) with \(\rho\) linear. Part of the results of the paper examine groups in the class \(TC_{\text{linear}}\) and show that this class contains groups that are not even minimally almost convex for some generating set, but does not decide the question of whether every such group (in particular \(F\) and \(BS(1,p)\) with \(p\geq 3\)) have a generating set with respect to which it is minimally almost convex.