English

The Tits alternative for visibility spaces

Group Theory 2025-10-02 v1 Differential Geometry Geometric Topology

Abstract

Let Γ\Gamma be a finitely generated group acting properly discontinuously by isometries on a visibility CAT(0) space XX that satisfies the bounded packing property. We prove that Γ\Gamma satisfies the Tits alternative: it is either almost nilpotent or contains a free nonabelian subgroup of rank 22. In the former case, it is equivalent to that the cardinality of the limit set of Γ\Gamma in the geometric boundary of XX is no greater than 22. As an application of the Tits alternative, we show that any finitely generated torsion group acting properly discontinuously by isometries on such a space must be a finite group and have a global fixed point.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.01008,
  title  = {The Tits alternative for visibility spaces},
  author = {Ran Ji and Yunhui Wu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.01008},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

20 pages. Comments welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:10:55.670Z