English

The Action of Thompson's Group on a CAT(0) Boundary

Group Theory 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

One way to show that Thompson's group F is non-amenable is to exhibit an action of F on a locally compact CAT(0) space X containing no F-invariant flats and having no global fixed points in its boundary-at-infinity. We study the actions of Thompson's groups F, T, and V on the boundaries-at-infinity of proper CAT(0) cubical complexes. In particular, we show that Thompson's groups T and V act without fixing any points in the boundaries of their CAT(0) cubical complexes. This in particular gives another proof of the well-known fact that these groups are non-amenable. We obtain a partial description of the fixed set for F: Thompson's group F fixes an arc in the boundary of its cubical complex. We leave open the possibility that there are more fixed points, but describe a region of the boundary which must contain all of the others.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.math/0604077,
  title  = {The Action of Thompson's Group on a CAT(0) Boundary},
  author = {Daniel Farley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:math/0604077},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

33 pages, 28 figures