Cleanliness versus specialness (Q6843307)

In the setting of graphs of free groups and VH-complexes (see, for example, [\textit{M. R. Bridson} and \textit{D. T. Wise}, Math. Proc. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 126, No. 3, 481--497 (1999; Zbl 0934.20018); \textit{D. T. Wise}, Invent. Math. 149, No. 3, 579--617 (2002; Zbl 1040.20024)]), one considers the notions of VH-clean, geometrically clean, and algebraically clean graphs of free groups, together with their virtual analogues. The paper studies the relations among these conditions.\N\NThe main result shows that there exists a geometrically clean graph of finite graphs whose fundamental group is not virtually compact special. This gives a negative answer to a question of Wise asking whether every geometrically clean graph of finite rank free groups is virtually compact special. As a consequence, the class of groups which virtually split as VH-clean graphs of finite rank free groups is properly contained in the class of groups which virtually split as geometrically clean graphs of finite rank free groups.\N\NThe construction is explicit: the author considers a graph of graphs over the theta-graph \(\Theta\) whose fundamental group embeds as an index \(6\) subgroup of the Artin group \(A_{2,3,\infty}\). This example is shown not to be virtually cocompactly cubulated, and hence not virtually compact special.\N\NThe paper also develops an infinite family of analogous examples arising from the Artin groups \(A_{2,n,\infty}\) for odd \(n\ge 3\), and proves that the resulting geometrically clean graphs of free groups are again not virtually compact special.