Related papers: On the semi-direct product structure of CAT(0) gro…

In this paper, we show some splitting theorems for CAT(0) spaces on which a product group acts geometrically and we obtain a splitting theorem for compact geodesic spaces of non-positive curvature. A CAT(0) group $\Gamma$ is said to be {\it…

Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely generated group of matrices over $\mathbb{C}$. We construct an isometric action of $\Gamma$ on a complete CAT(0) space $X$ such that the restriction of this action to any subgroup of $\Gamma$ containing no…

We study those groups that act properly discontinuously, cocompactly, and isometrically on CAT(0) spaces with isolated flats and the Relative Fellow Traveller Property. The groups in question include word hyperbolic CAT(0) groups as well as…

We prove some finiteness results for discrete isometry groups $\Gamma$ of uniformly packed CAT$(0)$-spaces $X$ with uniformly bounded codiameter (up to group isomorphism), and for CAT$(0)$-orbispaces $M = \Gamma \backslash X$ (up to…

We study discrete groups from the view point of a dimension gap in connection to CAT(0) geometry. Developing studies by Brady-Crisp and Bridson, we show that there exist finitely presented groups of geometric dimension 2 which do not act…

A seminal result in geometric group theory is that a 1-ended hyperbolic group has a locally connected visual boundary. As a consequence, a 1-ended hyperbolic group also has a path connected visual boundary. In this paper, we study when this…

The class of quasi-median graphs is a generalisation of median graphs, or equivalently of CAT(0) cube complexes. The purpose of this thesis is to introduce these graphs in geometric group theory. In the first part of our work, we extend the…

In this article we study asymptotic properties of certain discrete groups $\Gamma$ acting by isometries on a product $\XX=\XX_1\times \XX_2$ of locally compact Hadamard spaces. The motivation comes from the fact that Kac-Moody groups over…

We say that a subset $X$ quasi-isometrically boundedly generates a finitely generated group $\Gamma$ if each element $\gamma$ of a finite-index subgroup of $\Gamma$ can be written as a product $\gamma = x_1 x_2 \cdots x_r$ of a bounded…

We examine a graph $\Gamma$ encoding the intersection of hyperplane carriers in a CAT(0) cube complex $\widetilde X$. The main result is that $\Gamma$ is quasi-isometric to a tree. This implies that a group $G$ acting properly and…

In this paper we study group actions on quasi-median graphs, or 'CAT(0) prism complexes', generalising the notion of CAT(0) cube complexes. We consider hyperplanes in a quasi-median graph $X$ and define the contact graph $\mathcal{C}X$ for…

We prove that every finitely generated group $G$ discriminated by a locally quasi-convex torsion-free hyperbolic group $\Gamma$ is effectively coherent: that is, presentations for finitely generated subgroups can be computed from the…

We show that every word hyperbolic, surface-by-(noncyclic) free group Gamma is as rigid as possible: the quasi-isometry group of Gamma equals the abstract commensurator group Comm(Gamma), which in turn contains Gamma as a finite index…

We study the general theory of asymptotically CAT(0) groups, explaining why such a group has finitely many conjugacy classes of finite subgroups, is $F_\infty$ and has solvable word problem. We provide techniques to combine asymptotically…

We investigate CAT(0) metric spaces whose associated Tits boundary is compact. Prominent examples of such spaces are of course the euclidean ones. However there exist non trivial geodesically complete CAT(0) spaces with compact Tits…

We provide an analysis of the dynamics of isometries and semicontractions of metric spaces. Certain subsets of the boundary at infinity play a fundamental role and are identified completely for the standard boundaries of CAT(0)-spaces,…

Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely generated group and $N$ be a normal subgroup of $\Gamma$. The fiber product of $\Gamma$ with respect to $N$ is the subgroup $\Gamma \times_N \Gamma=\{(\gamma, \gamma w): \gamma \in \Gamma, w \in N\}$ of the direct…

Given a complete CAT(0) space $X$ endowed with a geometric action of a group $\Gamma$, it is known that if $\Gamma$ contains a free abelian group of rank $n$, then $X$ contains a geometric flat of dimension $n$. We prove a converse of this…

Let $X=S\times E \times B$ be the metric product of a symmetric space $S$ of noncompact type, a Euclidean space $E$ and a product $B$ of Euclidean buildings. Let $\Gamma$ be a discrete group acting isometrically and cocompactly on $X$. We…

This thesis is dedicated to random walks on spaces with non-positive curvature. In particular, we study the case of group actions on CAT(0) spaces that admit contracting elements, that is, whose properties mimic those of loxodromic…