Special groups with an elementary hierarchy are virtually free-by-\(\mathbb Z\). (Q990734)

The article deals with groups admitting an elementary hierarchy in the following sense. The trivial and infinite cyclic groups are elementary; the trivial group has an elementary hierarchy of length \(0\). Now a group is said to have an elementary hierarchy of length \(n\) if it splits as a connected graph of groups where vertex groups have an elementary hierarchy of length \(n-1\), and edge groups are elementary. The main result of the paper is (Theorem A) that if a finitely generated group \(G\) admits an elementary hierarchy and virtually embeds into a right-angled Artin group, then it is virtually free-by-\(\mathbb Z\). By a similar analysis and using work of \textit{O. Kharlampovich} and \textit{A. Myasnikov} [J. Algebra 200, No. 2, 517-570 (1998; Zbl 0904.20017)] or \textit{Z. Sela} [Isr. J. Math. 134, 173-254 (2003; Zbl 1028.20028)], hyperbolic limit groups are shown to be virtually free-by-\(\mathbb Z\) (Corollary B). The authors ask whether one can in the latter case drop ``virtually''.