Related papers: Cones and ping-pong in three dimensions
In this pedagogical note we present a short proof of the following main result of arxiv.org/abs/0911.5319, and clarify its relation to the isoperimetric problem. On the hyperbolic plane consider triangles ABC with fixed lengths of AB and…
We adapt the Ping-Pong Lemma, which historically was used to study free products of groups, to the setting of the homeomorphism group of the unit interval. As a consequence, we isolate a large class of generating sets for subgroups of…
This is the story of the rediscovery of classical three-dimensional geometry, especially the geometry of quadric surfaces, while studying the semigroup $M_2(\mathbb R)$ of linear endomorphisms of a real plane. One of the surfaces that…
This article introduces the notion of L-tangle-free compact hyperbolic surfaces, inspired by the identically named property for regular graphs. Random surfaces of genus g, picked with the Weil-Petersson probability measure, are (a log…
Testing isomorphism of infinite groups is a classical topic, but from the complexity theory viewpoint, few results are known. S{\'e}nizergues and the fifth author (ICALP2018) proved that the isomorphism problem for virtually free groups is…
We contribute to the classification of toroidal circle planes and flat Minkowski planes possessing three-dimensional connected groups of automorphisms. When such a group is an almost simple Lie group, we show that it is isomorphic to…
We establish lower estimates for singular value gaps of free products of $1$-divergent semigroups $\Gamma_1,\Gamma_2\subset \mathsf{GL}_d(\mathbb{K})$ which are in ping-pong position. As an application, we prove that if $\Gamma_1$ and…
Surface groups are known to be the Poincar\'e Duality groups of dimension two since the work of Eckmann, Linnell and M\"uller. We prove a prosolvable analogue of this result that allows us to show that surface groups are profinitely (and…
We identify the finitely many arithmetic lattices $\Gamma$ in the orientation preserving isometry group of hyperbolic $3$-space $\mathbb{H}^3$ generated by an element of order $4$ and and element of order $p\geq 2$. Thus $\Gamma$ has a…
We discuss actions of free groups on the circle with "ping-pong" dynamics; these are dynamics determined by a finite amount of combinatorial data, analogous to Schottky domains or Markov partitions. Using this, we show that the free group…
Given a symplectic surface $(\Sigma, \omega)$ of genus $g \ge 4$, we show that the free group with two generators embeds into every asymptotic cone of $(\mathrm{Ham}(\Sigma, \omega), d_\mathrm{H})$, where $d_\mathrm{H}$ is the Hofer metric.…
In this paper, we show that for any finite subgroup $\Gamma < O(4)$ acting freely on $\mathbb{S}^3$, there exists a $4$-dimensional complete Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ with ${\rm Ric}_g \geq 0 $, such that the asymptotic cone of $(M,g)$ is…
We show that for any positive integer $n$ there exists a constant $C(n)>0$ such that any $n$-generated group $G$, which acts by isometries on a $\delta$-hyperbolic space (with $\delta>0$), is either free or has a nontrivial element with…
For n>6, we show that if G is a torsion-free hyperbolic group whose visual boundary is an (n-2)-dimensional Sierpinski space, then G=\pi_1(W) for some aspherical n-manifold W with nonempty boundary. Concerning the converse, we construct,…
We classify the polycyclic totally ordered simple dimension groups, i.e. dimension groups given by a dense embedding of n-dimensional lattice into the real line. Our method is based on the geometry of simple geodesics on the hyperbolic…
For vectors in $\mathbb{E}_3$ we introduce an associative, commutative and distributive multiplication. We describe the related algebraic and geometrical properties, and hint some applications. Based on properties of hyperbolic (Clifford)…
We define a class of groups constructed from rings equipped with an involution. We show that under suitable conditions, these groups are either algebraic or arithmetic, including as special cases the orientation-preserving isometry group of…
We determine, for all three-dimensional non-unimodular Lie groups equipped with a Lorentzian metric, the set of homogeneous geodesics through a point. Together with the results of [C] and [CM2], this leads to the full classification of…
We build quasi--isometry invariants of relatively hyperbolic groups which detect the hyperbolic parts of the group; these are variations of the stable dimension constructions previously introduced by the authors. We prove that, given any…
We consider non-elementary representations of two generator free groups in $PSL(2,\mathbb{C})$, not necessarily discrete or free, $G = < A, B >$. A word in $A$ and $B$, $W(A,B)$, is a palindrome if it reads the same forwards and backwards.…