Boundaries of cocompact proper CAT(0) spaces. (Q882481)

The authors study the spaces indicated in the title. The question is: what compact metrizable space can be homeomorphic to the boundary at infinity for a proper cocompact CAT(0) space? Cocompactness means that there is a compact fundamental domain with respect to the action of the full isometry group. It is known [\textit{E. L. Swenson}, J. Differ. Geom. 53, No. 2, 327-358 (1999; Zbl 1038.20029)] that if the space \(Y\) is homeomorphic to the boundary of a proper cocompact CAT(0)-space, then its Lebesgue covering dimension is finite. The main theorem of the paper is the following. Let the non-empty compact metrizable space \(Y\) be homeomorphic to the boundary of a proper cocompact CAT(0)-space and \(d\) be its Lebesgue covering dimension. Then the \(d\)-dimensional Čech cohomology group with integer coefficients is non-trivial. In particular, the boundary of a cocompact proper CAT(0)-space can not be homeomorphic to a compact manifold with non-empty boundary. As a corollary, given a group \(\Gamma\), the dimension of the boundary of a CAT(0)-space on which \(\Gamma\) acts geometrically is a quasi-isometry invariant of \(\Gamma\). Another application: every non-compact cocompact proper CAT(0)-space \(X\) is almost geodesically complete. This means that there is a number \(r>0\) such that for any two points \(a,b\in X\) there is a geodesic ray \(\gamma\colon[0,\infty)\to X\) with \(\gamma(0)=a\) intersecting the open ball of radius \(r\) centered in \(b\).