Amenable hyperbolic groups (Q894197)

A locally compact group \(G\) is a Gromov-hyperbolic group if it admits a compact generating set such that the associated word metric is Gromov-hyperbolic. In the paper under review, the authors give a complete characterization of the locally compact groups that are nonelementary Gromov-hyperbolic and amenable. They coincide with the class of mapping tori of discrete or continuous one-parameter groups of compacting automorphisms. They moreover give a description of all Gromov-hyperbolic locally compact groups with a cocompact amenable subgroup: modulo a compact normal subgroup, these turn out to be either rank one simple Lie groups, or automorphism group of semiregular trees acting doubly transitively on the set of ends.