Random rigidity in the free group.

Free nonabelian groups (20E05) Commutator calculus (20F12) Geometric group theory (20F65) Hyperbolic groups and nonpositively curved groups (20F67) Asymptotic properties of groups (20F69) Probabilistic methods in group theory (20P05) Topological methods in group theory (57M07)

Abstract: We prove a rigidity theorem for the geometry of the unit ball in random subspaces of the scl norm in B_1^H of a free group. In a free group F of rank k, a random word w of length n (conditioned to lie in [F,F]) has scl(w)=log(2k-1)n/6log(n) + o(n/log(n)) with high probability, and the unit ball in a subspace spanned by d random words of length O(n) is C^0 close to a (suitably affinely scaled) octahedron. A conjectural generalization to hyperbolic groups and manifolds (discussed in the appendix) would show that the length of a random geodesic in a hyperbolic manifold can be recovered from the bounded cohomology of the fundamental group.

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Let \(G\) be a group and \([G,G]\) its commutator subgroup. The commutator length of an element \(g\in [G,G]\), denoted \(\mathrm{cl}(g)\), is the least number of commutators whose product is \(g\). The stable commutator length, denoted \(\mathrm{scl}(G)\), is the limit \(\mathrm{scl}(g)=\lim_{n\to\infty}\mathrm{cl}(g^n)/n\).NEWLINENEWLINE Let \(C_1(G)\) be the real vector space with basis the elements of \(G\) and let \(B_1(G)\) be the kernel of \(C_1(G)\to H_1(G;\mathbb R)\). It is a fact that scl extends by linearity and continuity to a pseudo-norm on \(B_1(G)\) and vanishes on the subspace \(\langle g-hgh^{-1},g^n-ng\rangle\). So scl descends to a pseudo-norm on the quotient \(B^H_1(G)=B_1(G)/\langle g-hgh^{-1},g^n-ng\rangle\).NEWLINENEWLINE In this paper the authors prove a rigidity theorem for the geometry of the unit ball in random finite dimensional subspaces of \(B^H_1(F)\), where \(F\) is a free group.NEWLINENEWLINE Theorem 1. Let \(F\) be a free group of rank \(k\) and let \(u\) be a random reduced element of length \(n\), conditioned to lie in the commutator subgroup \([F,F]\). Then for any \(\varepsilon>0\) and \(C>1\), NEWLINE\[NEWLINE|\mathrm{scl}(u)\log(n)/n-\log(2k-1)/6|\leq\varepsilonNEWLINE\]NEWLINE with probability \(1-O(n^{-c})\).NEWLINENEWLINE In more geometric language, they prove a stronger result on the geometry of the unit ball in the scl norm in a random subspace.NEWLINENEWLINE Theorem 2. Let \(F\) be a free group of rank \(k\) and, for a fixed \(d\), let \(u_1,u_2,\ldots,u_d\) be independent random reduced elements of length \(n_1,n_2,\ldots,n_d\) conditioned to lie in \([F,F]\), where without loss of generality it is assumed \(n_1\geq n_i\) for all \(i\). Let \(V\) be the subspace of \(B^H_1(F)\) spanned by the \(u_i\). Then for any \(\varepsilon>0\), \(C>1\) and real numbers \(t_i\), NEWLINE\[NEWLINE|\mathrm{scl}(\sum t_iu_i)\log(n_1)/n_1-\log(2k-1)(\sum|t_i|n_i)/6n_1|\leq\varepsilonNEWLINE\]NEWLINE with probability \(1-O(n_1^{-C})\).NEWLINENEWLINE Here `random' means with respect to the uniform probability on the finite set of reduced words of length \(n\) in \([F,F]\) (when \(n\) is even) and the expression \(O(g(x))\), for the function \(g(x)\), denotes some function \(f(x)\) satisfying \(f(x)\leq C|g(x)|\) for some positive constant \(C\) and for all \(x\gg 0\).NEWLINENEWLINE Conjectural generalization to hyperbolic groups and manifolds is discussed in an appendix.

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