English

Relative Free Splitting Complexes II: Stable Translation Lengths and the Two Over All Theorem

Group Theory 2025-03-12 v2

Abstract

This is the second of a three part study of relative free splitting complexes FS(Γ;A)\mathcal{FS}(\Gamma;\mathscr A), known from Part~I to be Gromov hyperbolic. Here and in~Part III we focus on stable translation lengths τϕ0\tau_\phi \ge 0 of the simplicial isometries of FS(Γ;A)\mathcal{FS}(\Gamma;\mathscr A) induced by relative outer automorphisms ϕOut(Γ;A)\phi \in \text{Out}(\Gamma;\mathscr A), stating and proving quantitative generalizations of earlier theorems for Out(Fn)\text{Out}(F_n). The main technical result proved here in Part~II is the \emph{Two Over All Theorem}, which expresses a uniform exponential flaring property along arbitrary Stallings fold paths in FS(Γ;A)\mathcal{FS}(\Gamma;\mathscr A), a new result even for Out(Fn)\text{Out}(F_n). We give two applications of this theorem. First, the natural map from the relative outer space O(Γ;A){\mathscr O}(\Gamma;\mathscr A) to the relative free splitting complex FS(Γ;A)\mathcal{FS}(\Gamma;\mathscr A) is coarsely Lipschitz, with respect to the log-Lipschitz semimetric on~O(Γ;A){\mathscr O}(\Gamma;\mathscr A). Second, if ϕOut(Γ;A)\phi \in \text{Out}(\Gamma;\mathscr A) has a filling attracting lamination with expansion factor λ>1\lambda>1 then the stable translation length of ϕ\phi acting on FS(Γ;A)\mathcal{FS}(\Gamma;\mathscr A) has an upper bound of the form~Blog(λ)B \log(\lambda).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2212.09907,
  title  = {Relative Free Splitting Complexes II: Stable Translation Lengths and the Two Over All Theorem},
  author = {Michael Handel and Lee Mosher},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.09907},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

70 pages. Title changed (old title: "Stable Translation Lengths on Free Splitting Complexes I: The Two Over All Theorem and its Applications"). Rewrote Step 3 of the Two Over All Theorem, and the Sewing Needle Lemma. Other small changes in support of Part III. See arXiv:1111.1994 for Part I, and arXiv:2503.07532 for Part III