Free groups as end homogeneity groups of \(3\)-manifolds (Q832432)

Given a compact subset \(K\) of the 3-sphere \(S^3\), one can consider the complement \(S^3 - C\) and observe that it is actually an open 3-manifold \(M^3\) whose end set is exactly \(K\). Thus, one can study those properties of the 3-manifold \(M^3\) which are in relation with \(K\) and the way it is embedded. In the paper under review the authors consider embeddings of the Cantor set \(C\) in \(S^3\) and study the associated \textit{homogeneity group} of \(C\) in the 3-manifold \(M^3=S^3 -C\), that is the group of homeomorphisms of \(C\) which extend to homeomorphisms of the whole \(M^3\). Since there are examples of embeddings of \(C\) whose embedding homogeneity groups may be both the whole group of self-homeomorphisms of \(C\) or just the identity homeomorphism, the authors have started the investigation of the following question: which groups can, or cannot, be homogeneity groups of the Cantor set? In this paper they expand the class of such groups, that already includes finitely generated abelian groups, by constructing, for any finitely generated free group \(F\), a specific irreducible open 3-manifold \(M_F\) whose end set is homeomorphic the the Cantor set and with end homogeneity group isomorphic to \(F\). The proof is based on a precise technical construction in \(\mathbb R^3\) of a specific Cayley graph of the free group on \(n\) generators.