\( \ell^p\) metrics on cell complexes (Q7035140)

In the introduction of this paper, the authors describe its motivation and content particularly well. Therefore, the reviewer has decided to quote excerpts from it.\N\N``Three particularly noteworthy classes of metric spaces from recent geometric group theory have been CAT(0) spaces, median metric spaces and injective metric spaces. Respectively, these can be thought of as being modelled on \(\ell^{1}\), \(\ell^{2}\) and \(\ell^{\infty}\) geometry. As one might expect, the strongest consequences are to be had from the \(\ell^{1}\) model, but correspondingly it is the most restrictive. Conversely, the \(\ell^{\infty}\) model is the most general, but the properties one can obtain are more limited. The \(\ell^{2}\) model serves as a happy medium between these two extremes, but it suffers from a different problem: it is extremely difficult to determine whether a given space is CAT(0) without already possessing stronger information, such as the existence of a certain manifold structure or the possibility of using \(\ell^{1}\) methods. [\dots]\N\NIn this article, we consider a natural interpolation between these notions, namely Busemann convex cell complexes whose cells are given an \(\ell^{p}\) metric. Recall that a metric space \((X, \mathsf{d})\) is Busemann-convex if for every \(x,y \in X\) there is a unique geodesic \(\sigma_{xy} \in [0,1] \rightarrow X\) from \(x\) to \(y\), and moreover the following holds for all \(x,y,x',y' \in X\), \(t \in [0,1]\):\N\[\N\mathsf{d} \big (\sigma_{xy}(t), \sigma_{x'y'}(t) \big ) \leq t \mathsf{d}(y,y')+(1-t)\mathsf{d}(x,x').\N\]\NBy relaxing the parameter \(p\) to allow finite values larger than 2, we hope to be able to study naturally occurring spaces that either fail to be CAT(0) or are not easily determined to be so. In fact, much of what we do can actually be phrased more generally in terms of spaces with certain bicombings, for which we provide a local criterion (see Theorem A). [\dots]\N\NOne important geometric property of cell complexes with the \(\ell^{2}\) metric that fails for the \(\ell^{\infty}\) metric is that of strong bolicity (see Definition 4.2). It is a generalisation to general metric spaces of notions from the theory of Banach spaces, and was introduced by \textit{G. Kasparov} and \textit{G. Skandalis} in their work on the Novikov conjecture [C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris, Sér. I 319, No. 8, 815--820 (1994; Zbl 0839.19003)]. It was then used by \textit{V. Lafforgue} for the Baum-Connes conjecture by [Invent. Math. 149, No. 1, 1--95 (2002; Zbl 1084.19003)], which led to a proof for hyperbolic groups by \textit{I. Mineyev} and \textit{G. Yu} [Invent. Math. 149, No. 1, 97--122 (2002; Zbl 1038.20030)]. We show that, under mild conditions, a cell complex with the \(\ell^{p}\) metric is strongly bolic when \(p\) is finite (see Theorem B). [\dots]\N\NA motivating idea here comes from hyperbolic groups. In the \(\ell^{2}\) setting it is a well-known open problem whether every hyperbolic group admits a proper cocompact action on a CAT(0) space. On the other hand, if we consider \(p=\infty\) then a result of \textit{U. Lang} [J. Topol. Anal. 5, No. 3, 297--331 (2013; Zbl 1292.20046)] tells us that every hyperbolic group has such an action on an injective space with a natural cell structure. The \(\ell^{p}\) framework suggests a natural weakening of the CAT(0) question: is it the case that for each hyperbolic group \(G\) there is a value of \(p\) such that \(G\) acts properly cocompactly on a Busemann-convex cell complex whose cells have an \(\ell^{p}\) metric? Positive evidence for this comes from Yu's result that every hyperbolic group admits a proper affine action on an \(\ell^{p}\)-space [\textit{G. Yu}, Geom. Funct. Anal. 15, No. 5, 1144--1151 (2005; Zbl 1112.46054); \textit{A. Alvarez} and \textit{V. Lafforgue}, Expo. Math. 35, No. 1, 103--118 (2017; Zbl 1476.20045)]), which holds in spite of the fact that (finitely generated) groups with Property (T) cannot have unbounded orbits on \(\ell^{2}\) [\textit{P. Delorme}, Bull. Soc. Math. Fr. 105, 281--336 (1977; Zbl 0404.22006); \textit{A. Guichardet}, Bull. Sci. Math., II. Ser. 96, 305--332 (1972; Zbl 0243.57024)]). [\dots]\N\NAs a nice source of examples, we work out in detail the case of a CAT(0) cube complex endowed with the \(\ell^{p}\) metric, following work of \textit{F. Ardila}, \textit{M. Owen} and \textit{S. Sullivant} [Adv. Appl. Math. 48, No. 1, 142--163 (2012; Zbl 1275.05055)] for the CAT(0) metric. We prove that, with the \(\ell^{p}\) metric, CAT(0) cube complexes are Busemann-convex and strongly bolic (Theorem D). We also give an explicit local characterisation of geodesics (Theorem F) and derive a local distance formula (Theorem G).''