Geometric actions of surface groups on \(\Lambda\)-trees (Q757899)

Stimulated by Thurston's construction of a boundary for Teichmüller space, many authors have studied the space of discrete faithful representations of a group \(\Gamma\) into the group of isometries of n- dimensional hyperbolic space \(H^ n\). Morgan and Shalen showed that any sequence of such representations either has a subsequence converging to a discrete faithful representation, or has a subsequence converging to an action by isometries on a \(\Lambda\)-tree, where \(\Lambda\) is an ordered abelian group. Convergence here means that the ratios of the translation lengths of any two elements of \(\Gamma\) converge to the ratio of their translation lengths on the \(\Lambda\)-tree. In the case when \(\Gamma\) is the fundamental group \(\pi_ 1(F)\) of a complete hyperbolic 2-manifold of finite area, one obtains actions for which (1) the stabilizer of each segment is cyclic, and (2) whenever two elements of \(\pi_ 1(F)\) are hyperbolic as isometries of \(H^ 2\) and of the tree, and their axes in \(H^ 2\) intersect transversely in one point, then their axes as isometries of the tree also intersect. Morgan and Otal proved that a minimal action on a \(\Lambda\)-tree is dual to a \(\Lambda\)- measured lamination on F if and only if it satisfies these two conditions. In the paper under review, the author proves that a minimal \(\pi_ 1(F)\)-action on a \(\Lambda\)-tree is dual to a \(\Lambda\)-measured geodesic lamination on F if and only if it has a length function \(\ell\) which satisfies (2) and is of a general type, which means that for some pair s, t of hyperbolic elements, \(\ell (st)>\ell (s)+\ell (t)\) (geometrically, this means that the axes of s and t do not intersect). To prove this, the author first constructs a space of ends of the tree, extends the action of \(\pi_ 1(F)\) to the ends, and shows that the space of ends has many of the properties of the circle at infinity of \(H^ 2\); in particular, the set of endpoints of the axes of hyperbolic elements is dense in the space of ends. Condition (2) leads to the fact that sending the endpoints of axes of hyperbolic elements to the corresponding endpoints in the circle at infinity for \(H^ 2\) extends to a continuous map from the space of ends. For a point p in the tree, the components of its complement partition the endpoints into sets which determine corresponding intervals in the circle. The geodesics spanned by the endpoints of these intervals, as p ranges over all points in the tree, form the lamination to which the tree is dual.