Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Textbook Geometric Group Theory An Introduction Draft Clara Loh Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Geometric Group Theory An Introduction Draft Clara Loh Ebook All Chapter PDF
https://textbookfull.com/product/geometric-group-theory-an-
introduction-1st-edition-clara-loh/
https://textbookfull.com/product/geometric-and-cohomological-
group-theory-1st-edition-peter-h-kropholler/
https://textbookfull.com/product/dynamical-systems-and-geometric-
mechanics-an-introduction-jared-michael-maruskin/
https://textbookfull.com/product/group-recommender-systems-an-
introduction-1st-edition-alexander-felfernig/
An introduction to group work practice Eighth Edition
Toseland
https://textbookfull.com/product/an-introduction-to-group-work-
practice-eighth-edition-toseland/
https://textbookfull.com/product/sport-and-sustainable-
development-an-introduction-1st-edition-taylor-francis-group/
https://textbookfull.com/product/an-introduction-to-medicinal-
chemistry-graham-l-patrick/
https://textbookfull.com/product/an-introduction-to-medicinal-
chemistry-graham-l-patrick-2/
https://textbookfull.com/product/elementary-number-theory-primes-
congruences-and-secrets-book-draft-william-stein/
Clara Löh
n!
sio
er
tv
af
dr
a
is
is
th
Clara Löh
clara.loeh@mathematik.uni-regensburg.de
http://www.mathematik.uni-regensburg.de/loeh/
Fakultät für Mathematik
n!
Universität Regensburg
sio
93040 Regensburg
er
Germany
tv
af
für A ∗ A
is
is
a
dr
af
tv
er
sio
n!
th
is
is
a
dr
af
tv
er
sio
n!
About this book
This book is an introduction into geometric group theory. It is certainly not
an encyclopedic treatment of geometric group theory, but hopefully it will
prepare and encourage the reader to take the next step and learn more ad-
vanced aspects of geometric group theory.
The core material of the book should be accessible to third year students,
requiring only a basic acquaintance with group theory, metric spaces, and
point-set topology. I tried to keep the level of the exposition as elementary
as possible, preferring elementary proofs over arguments that require more
machinery in topology or geometry. I refrained from adding complete proofs
for some of the deeper theorems and instead included sketch proofs, high-
lighting the key ideas and the view towards applications. However, many of
the applications will need a more extensive background in algebraic topology,
Riemannian geometry, and algebra.
The exercises are rated in difficulty, from easy* over medium** to hard***.
And very hard∞ * (usually, open problems of some sort). The core exercises
should be accessible to third year students, but some of the exercises aim at
applications in other fields and hence require a background in these fields.
Moreover, there are exercise sections that develop additional theory in a series
of exercises; these exercise sections are marked with + .
This book covers slightly more than a one-semester course. Most of the
material originates from various courses and seminars I taught at the Uni-
versität Regensburg: the geometric group theory courses (2010 and 2014),
the seminar on amenable groups (2011), the course on linear groups and
heights (2015, together with Walter Gubler), and an elementary course on
geometry (2016). Most of the students had a background in real and complex
analysis, in linear algebra, algebra, and some basic geometry of manifolds;
some of the students also had experience in algebraic topology and Rieman-
nian geometry. I would like to thank the participants of these courses and
seminars for their interest in the subject and their patience.
I am particularly grateful to Toni Annala, Matthias Blank, Luigi Ca-
puti, Francesca Diana, Alexander Engel, Daniel Fauser, Stefan Friedl, Wal-
ter Gubler, Michal Marcinkowski, Andreas Thom, Johannes Witzig, and the
anonymous referees for many valuable suggestions and corrections. This work
was supported by the GRK 1692 Curvature, Cycles, and Cohomology (Uni-
versität Regensburg, funded by the DFG).
n!
sio
er
tv
af
1 Introduction 1
Part I Groups 7
2 Generating groups 9
2.1 Review of the category of groups 10
2.1.1 Abstract groups: axioms 10
2.1.2 Concrete groups: automorphism groups 12
2.1.3 Normal subgroups and quotients 16
2.2 Groups via generators and relations 19
2.2.1 Generating sets of groups 19
2.2.2 Free groups 20
2.2.3 Generators and relations 25
2.2.4 Finitely presented groups 29
2.3 New groups out of old 31
2.3.1 Products and extensions 32
2.3.2 Free products and amalgamated free products 34
2.E Exercises 39
n!
sio
er
tv
af
dr
a
is
is
th
viii Contents
3 Cayley graphs 53
3.1 Review of graph notation 54
3.2 Cayley graphs 57
3.3 Cayley graphs of free groups 61
3.3.1 Free groups and reduced words 62
3.3.2 Free groups → trees 65
3.3.3 Trees → free groups 66
3.E Exercises 68
4 Group actions 75
4.1 Review of group actions 76
4.1.1 Free actions 77
4.1.2 Orbits and stabilisers 80
4.1.3 Application: Counting via group actions 83
4.1.4 Transitive actions 84
4.2 Free groups and actions on trees 86
4.2.1 Spanning trees for group actions 87
4.2.2 Reconstructing a Cayley tree 88
4.2.3 Application: Subgroups of free groups are free 92
4.3 The ping-pong lemma 95
4.4 Free subgroups of matrix groups 97
4.4.1 Application: The group SL(2, Z) is virtually free 97
4.4.2 Application: Regular graphs of large girth 100
4.4.3 Application: The Tits alternative 102
4.E Exercises 105
5 Quasi-isometry 115
5.1 Quasi-isometry types of metric spaces 116
5.2 Quasi-isometry types of groups 122
5.2.1 First examples 125
5.3 Quasi-geodesics and quasi-geodesic spaces 127
5.3.1 (Quasi-)Geodesic spaces 127
5.3.2 Geodesification via geometric realisation of graphs 128
5.4 The Švarc-Milnor lemma 132
5.4.1 Application: (Weak) commensurability 137
5.4.2 Application: Geometric structures on manifolds 139
5.5 The dynamic criterion for quasi-isometry 141
n!
A Appendix 319
A.1 The fundamental group 320
A.1.1 Construction and examples 320
A.1.2 Covering theory 322
A.2 Group (co)homology 325
A.2.1 Construction 325
A.2.2 Applications 327
A.3 The hyperbolic plane 329
A.3.1 Construction of the hyperbolic plane 329
A.3.2 Length of curves 330
n!
Bibliography 353
Index 373
n!
sio
er
tv
af
dr
a
is
is
th
th
is
is
a
dr
af
tv
er
sio
n!
1
Introduction
Groups are an abstract concept from algebra, formalising the study of sym-
metries of various mathematical objects.
What is geometric group theory? Geometric group theory investigates the
interaction between algebraic and geometric properties of groups:
• Can groups be viewed as geometric objects and how are geometric and
algebraic properties of groups related?
• More generally: On which geometric objects can a given group act in
a reasonable way, and how are geometric properties of these geometric
objects/actions related to algebraic properties of the group?
How does geometric group theory work? Classically, group-valued invari-
ants are associated with geometric objects, such as, e.g., the isometry group
or the fundamental group. It is one of the central insights leading to geometric
group theory that this process can be reversed to a certain extent:
1. We associate a geometric object with the group in question; this can
be an “artificial” abstract construction or a very concrete model space
(such as the Euclidean plane or the hyperbolic plane) or action from
classical geometric theories.
2. We take geometric invariants and apply these to the geometric objects
obtained by the first step. This allows to translate geometric terms such
as geodesics, curvature, volumes, etc. into group theory.
Usually, in this step, in order to obtain good invariants, one restricts
attention to finitely generated groups and takes geometric invariants
n!
from large scale geometry (as they blur the difference between different
sio
the algebraic behaviour, and we study what can be gained by this sym-
af
Z×Z Z Z∗Z
Why study geometric group theory? On the one hand, geometric group
theory is an interesting theory combining aspects of different fields of math-
ematics in a cunning way. On the other hand, geometric group theory has
numerous applications to problems in classical fields such as group theory,
Riemannian geometry, topology, and number theory.
For example, free groups (an a priori purely algebraic notion) can be char-
n!
sio
the (purely algebraic!) fact that subgroups of free groups are free.
tv
elementary amenable
solvable
s polycyclic
oup
gr
e nilpotent
bl
e na
am Abelian
finite groups
1 Z ?!
no free
n-
po
sit hyperbolic
ive
ly
cu
rv CAT(0)
ed
gr
ou
ps
• Recognising that certain matrix groups are free groups; there is a geo-
metric criterion, the ping-pong lemma, that allows to deduce freeness
of a group by looking at a suitable action (not necessarily on a tree).
• Recognising that certain groups are finitely generated; this can be done
geometrically by exhibiting a good action on a suitable space.
• Establishing decidability of the word problem for large classes of groups;
for example, Dehn used geometric ideas in his algorithm solving the
word problem in certain geometric classes of groups.
n!
cluding
sio
n!
sio
er
tv
af
dr
a
is
is
th
th
is
is
a
dr
af
tv
er
sio
n!
Part I
Groups
th
is
is
a
dr
af
tv
er
sio
n!
th
is
is
a
dr
af
tv
er
sio
n!
2
Generating groups
n!
sio
er
tv
af
dr
a
is
is
th
10 2. Generating groups
g1 · (g2 · g3 ) = (g1 · g2 ) · g3 .
g · g −1 = e = g −1 · g.
to addition (e.g., 1 does not have an additive inverse in N); the rational
af
Z −→ Z
x 7−→ n · x
ker ϕ := {g ∈ G | ϕ(g) = e}
n!
im ϕ := {ϕ(g) | g ∈ G}
tv
af
of H is the image of ϕ.
dr
a
is
is
th
12 2. Generating groups
Example 2.1.8 (Symmetric groups). Let X be a set. Then the set SX of all
bijections of type X −→ X is a group with respect to composition of maps,
the symmetric group over X. If n ∈ N, then we abbreviate Sn := S{1,...,n} . If
|X| ≥ 3, the group SX is not Abelian.
fg : G −→ G
x 7−→ g · x.
f : G −→ SG
g 7−→ fg
subgroup of SG .
dr
a
is
is
th
2.1. Review of the category of groups 13
In more conceptual language, these examples are all instances of the follow-
ing general principle: If X is an object in a category C, then the set AutC (X)
of C-isomorphisms of type X −→ X is a group with respect to composition
in C. We will now explain this in more detail:
(g, f ) 7−→ g ◦ f
er
tv
of morphisms.
af
The notion of categories contains all the ingredients necessary to talk about
isomorphisms and automorphisms:
=C Y (or X ∼
In this case, f and g are isomorphisms in C and we write X ∼ =Y
if the category is clear from the context).
set MorC (X, X) := G and we define the composition in C via the composition
af
in G by
dr
a
is
is
th
2.1. Review of the category of groups 15
X −→ X
x 7−→ x
is the identity morphism of X in Set. Objects in Set are isomorphic if and only
if they have the same cardinality and for all sets X the symmetric group SX
coincides with AutSet (X).
Example 2.1.21 (Algebra). The category Group of groups consists of:
• Objects: Let Ob(Group) be the class of all groups.
• Morphisms: For groups G and H we let MorGroup (G, H) be the set of
all group homomorphisms.
• Compositions: As compositions we choose ordinary composition of
maps.
Analogously, one also obtains the category Ab of Abelian groups, the cate-
gory VectR of R-vector spaces, the category R Mod of left R-modules over a
ring R, . . . Objects in Group, Ab, VectR , R Mod, . . . are isomorphic in the
sense of category theory if and only if they are isomorphic in the algebraic
sense. Moreover, both the category theoretic and the algebraic point of view
result in the same automorphism groups.
Example 2.1.22 (Geometry of isometric embeddings). The category Metisom of
metric spaces and isometric embeddings consists of:
• Objects: Let Ob(Metisom ) be the class of all metric spaces.
• Morphisms in Metisom are isometric embeddings (i.e., distance preserv-
n!
Then objects in Metisom are isomorphic if and only if they are isometric and
tv
spaces.
dr
a
is
is
th
16 2. Generating groups
g · n · g −1 ∈ N
(Proposition 2.1.26)).
dr
a
is
is
th
2.1. Review of the category of groups 17
π : G −→ G/N
g 7−→ g · N
G
ϕ
/H
=
π
ϕ
G/N
g1 · N = g 1 · N, and g2 · N = g 2 · N.
(g 1 · g 2 ) · N = (g1 · n1 · g2 · n2 ) · N
= (g1 · g2 · (g2−1 · n1 · g2 ) · n2 ) · N
= (g1 · g2 ) · N ;
in the last step we used that N is normal, which implies that g2−1 · n1 · g2 ∈ N
and hence g2−1 · n1 · g2 · n2 ∈ N . Therefore, the composition on G/N is well-
defined.
n!
sio
That G/N indeed is a group with respect to this composition follows easily
er