Irreducible automorphisms of growth rate one (Q686020)

As the title indicates the authors study the irreducible automorphisms (of a finitely generated free group \(F\)) of growth rate one. This terminology comes from the known paper of \textit{M. Bestvina} and \textit{M. Handel} [Ann. Math., II. Ser. 135, 1-51 (1992; Zbl 0757.57004)]. Here the authors describe explicitly the irreducible automorphisms of growth rate one. They define an automorphism \(\alpha \in \text{Aut }F\) to be reducible if there exists a free decomposition \(F = (*_{i\in \mathbb{Z}_ m}F_ i) * F_ \infty\), for some \(m\geq 1\), such that for every \(i \in \mathbb{Z}_ m\) there exists an \(f_ i \in F\) such that \(F_ i^{\alpha f_ i} = F_{i+1}\) (\(\mathbb{Z}_ m\) is the set of integers \(\text{mod }m\)). An automorphism is called irreducible if it is not reducible. The main result of this paper describes precisely the irreducible automorphisms of growth rate one: let \(p < q\) be prime numbers. Then the free group of rank \(pq-p-q+1\) can be presented as \(\langle x_{i,j} (i\in \mathbb{Z}_ p,\;j\in\mathbb{Z}_ q)\mid x_{i,0} = x_{0,j} = 1\rangle\), and the mapping \(x_{i,j}\mapsto x_{1,1} x^{- 1}_{i+1,1}x_{i+1,j+1}x^{-1}_{1,j+1}\), \(i\in \mathbb{Z}_ p\), \(j\in \mathbb{Z}_ q\) defines an automorphism denoted by \(\alpha_{pq}\). Let \(_ 0\) and \(_ 1\) denote the identity automorphisms of groups of rank 0 and 1, respectively and let \(\alpha_ 2\) denote the inverting automorphism of the free group of rank 1. They prove that an irreducible automorphism of a finitely generated free group with growth rate 1 is equivalent (in a certain sense) to one of the above automorphisms \(\alpha_ n\). They also study the irreducibility of the outer automorphisms as well as geometric realizations of the above irreducible automorphisms.