Perspectives in Lie Theory Program of Activities
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WHAT IS Outer Space?
WHAT IS Outer Space? Karen Vogtmann To investigate the properties of a group G, it is with a metric of constant negative curvature, and often useful to realize G as a group of symmetries g : S ! X is a homeomorphism, called the mark- of some geometric object. For example, the clas- ing, which is well-defined up to isotopy. From this sical modular group P SL(2; Z) can be thought of point of view, the mapping class group (which as a group of isometries of the upper half-plane can be identified with Out(π1(S))) acts on (X; g) f(x; y) 2 R2j y > 0g equipped with the hyper- by composing the marking with a homeomor- bolic metric ds2 = (dx2 + dy2)=y2. The study of phism of S { the hyperbolic metric on X does P SL(2; Z) and its subgroups via this action has not change. By deforming the metric on X, on occupied legions of mathematicians for well over the other hand, we obtain a neighborhood of the a century. point (X; g) in Teichm¨uller space. We are interested here in the (outer) automor- phism group of a finitely-generated free group. u v Although free groups are the simplest and most fundamental class of infinite groups, their auto- u v u v u u morphism groups are remarkably complex, and v x w v many natural questions about them remain unan- w w swered. We will describe a geometric object On known as Outer space , which was introduced in w w u v [2] to study Out(Fn). -
Automorphism Groups of Free Groups, Surface Groups and Free Abelian Groups
Automorphism groups of free groups, surface groups and free abelian groups Martin R. Bridson and Karen Vogtmann The group of 2 × 2 matrices with integer entries and determinant ±1 can be identified either with the group of outer automorphisms of a rank two free group or with the group of isotopy classes of homeomorphisms of a 2-dimensional torus. Thus this group is the beginning of three natural sequences of groups, namely the general linear groups GL(n, Z), the groups Out(Fn) of outer automorphisms of free groups of rank n ≥ 2, and the map- ± ping class groups Mod (Sg) of orientable surfaces of genus g ≥ 1. Much of the work on mapping class groups and automorphisms of free groups is motivated by the idea that these sequences of groups are strongly analogous, and should have many properties in common. This program is occasionally derailed by uncooperative facts but has in general proved to be a success- ful strategy, leading to fundamental discoveries about the structure of these groups. In this article we will highlight a few of the most striking similar- ities and differences between these series of groups and present some open problems motivated by this philosophy. ± Similarities among the groups Out(Fn), GL(n, Z) and Mod (Sg) begin with the fact that these are the outer automorphism groups of the most prim- itive types of torsion-free discrete groups, namely free groups, free abelian groups and the fundamental groups of closed orientable surfaces π1Sg. In the ± case of Out(Fn) and GL(n, Z) this is obvious, in the case of Mod (Sg) it is a classical theorem of Nielsen. -
THE SYMMETRIES of OUTER SPACE Martin R. Bridson* and Karen Vogtmann**
THE SYMMETRIES OF OUTER SPACE Martin R. Bridson* and Karen Vogtmann** ABSTRACT. For n 3, the natural map Out(Fn) → Aut(Kn) from the outer automorphism group of the free group of rank n to the group of simplicial auto- morphisms of the spine of outer space is an isomorphism. §1. Introduction If a eld F has no non-trivial automorphisms, then the fundamental theorem of projective geometry states that the group of incidence-preserving bijections of the projective space of dimension n over F is precisely PGL(n, F ). In the early nineteen seventies Jacques Tits proved a far-reaching generalization of this theorem: under suitable hypotheses, the full group of simplicial automorphisms of the spherical building associated to an algebraic group is equal to the algebraic group — see [T, p.VIII]. Tits’s theorem implies strong rigidity results for lattices in higher-rank — see [M]. There is a well-developed analogy between arithmetic groups on the one hand and mapping class groups and (outer) automorphism groups of free groups on the other. In this analogy, the role played by the symmetric space in the classical setting is played by the Teichmuller space in the case of case of mapping class groups and by Culler and Vogtmann’s outer space in the case of Out(Fn). Royden’s Theorem (see [R] and [EK]) states that the full isometry group of the Teichmuller space associated to a compact surface of genus at least two (with the Teichmuller metric) is the mapping class group of the surface. An elegant proof of Royden’s theorem was given recently by N. -
The Cohomology of Automorphism Groups of Free Groups
The cohomology of automorphism groups of free groups Karen Vogtmann∗ Abstract. There are intriguing analogies between automorphism groups of finitely gen- erated free groups and mapping class groups of surfaces on the one hand, and arithmetic groups such as GL(n, Z) on the other. We explore aspects of these analogies, focusing on cohomological properties. Each cohomological feature is studied with the aid of topolog- ical and geometric constructions closely related to the groups. These constructions often reveal unexpected connections with other areas of mathematics. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000). Primary 20F65; Secondary, 20F28. Keywords. Automorphism groups of free groups, Outer space, group cohomology. 1. Introduction In the 1920s and 30s Jakob Nielsen, J. H. C. Whitehead and Wilhelm Magnus in- vented many beautiful combinatorial and topological techniques in their efforts to understand groups of automorphisms of finitely-generated free groups, a tradition which was supplemented by new ideas of J. Stallings in the 1970s and early 1980s. Over the last 20 years mathematicians have been combining these ideas with others motivated by both the theory of arithmetic groups and that of surface mapping class groups. The result has been a surge of activity which has greatly expanded our understanding of these groups and of their relation to many areas of mathe- matics, from number theory to homotopy theory, Lie algebras to bio-mathematics, mathematical physics to low-dimensional topology and geometric group theory. In this article I will focus on progress which has been made in determining cohomological properties of automorphism groups of free groups, and try to in- dicate how this work is connected to some of the areas mentioned above. -
Karen Vogtmann
CURRICULUM VITAE -KAREN VOGTMANN Mathematics Institute Office: C2.05 Zeeman Bldg. Phone: +44 (0) 2476 532739 University of Warwick Email: [email protected] Coventry CV4 7AL PRINCIPAL FIELDS OF INTEREST Geometric group theory, Low-dimensional topology, Cohomology of groups EDUCATION B.A. University of California, Berkeley 1971 Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley 1977 ACADEMIC POSITIONS University of Warwick, Professor, 9/13 to present Cornell University – Goldwin Smith Professor of Mathematics Emeritus, 7/15 to present – Goldwin Smith Professor of Mathematics, 7/11 to 7/15 – Professor, 1/94 to 7/11 – Associate Professor, 7/87 to 12/93 – Assistant Professor, 7/85 to 6/87 – Visiting Assistant Professor, 9/84 to 6/85 Columbia University, Assistant Professor, 7/79 to 6/86 Brandeis University, Visiting Assistant Professor, 9/78 to 12/78 University of Michigan, Visiting Assistant Professor, 9/77 to 6/78 and 1/79 to 6/79 RESEARCH AND SABBATICAL POSITIONS MSRI, Berkeley, CA 8/19 to 11/19 Newton Institute, Cambridge, Mass, 3/17 to 5/17 MSRI, Berkeley, CA 8/16 to 12/16 Research Professor, ICERM, Providence, RI, 9/13 to 12/13 Freie Universitat¨ Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 6/12 Mittag-Leffler Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, 3/12 to 5/12 Visiting Researcher, Oxford University, Oxford, England, 2/12 Professeur invite, Marseilles, France, 5/11 Hausdorff Institute for Mathematics, 9/09 to 12/09 and 5/10-8/10 Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, CA, 8/07-12/07 I.H.E.S., Bures-sur-Yvette, France 3/04 Professeur Invite,´ Marseilles, France, 3/00 Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley, 1/95 to 7/95 I.H.E.S., Bures-sur-Yvette, France, 1/93-8/93 Chercheur, C.N.R.S., E.N.S. -
2020 Leroy P. Steele Prizes
FROM THE AMS SECRETARY 2020 Leroy P. Steele Prizes The 2020 Leroy P. Steele Prizes were presented at the 126th Annual Meeting of the AMS in Denver, Colorado, in Jan- uary 2020. The Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition was awarded to Martin R. Bridson and André Haefliger; the Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research in Analysis/Probability was awarded to Craig Tracy and Harold Widom; and the Prize for Lifetime Achievement was awarded to Karen Uhlenbeck. Citation for Riemannian geometry and group theory, that the field of Mathematical Exposition: geometric group theory came into being. Much of the 1990s Martin R. Bridson was spent finding rigorous proofs of Gromov’s insights and André Haefliger and expanding upon them. Metric Spaces of Non-Positive The 2020 Steele Prize for Math- Curvature is the outcome of that decade of work, and has ematical Exposition is awarded been the standard textbook and reference work throughout to Martin R. Bridson and André the field in the two decades of dramatic progress since its Haefliger for the book Metric publication in 1999. Spaces of Non-Positive Curvature, A metric space of non-positive curvature is a geodesic published by Springer-Verlag metric space satisfying (local) CAT(0) condition, that every in 1999. pair of points on a geodesic triangle should be no further Metric Spaces of Non-Positive apart than the corresponding points on the “comparison Martin R. Bridson Curvature is the authoritative triangle” in the Euclidean plane. Examples of such spaces reference for a huge swath of include non-positively curved Riemannian manifolds, modern geometric group the- Bruhat–Tits buildings, and a wide range of polyhedral ory. -
Combinatorial and Geometric Group Theory
Combinatorial and Geometric Group Theory Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN, USA May 5–10, 2006 Contents V. A. Artamonov . 1 Goulnara N. Arzhantseva . 1 Varujan Atabekian . 2 Yuri Bahturin . 2 Angela Barnhill . 2 Gilbert Baumslag . 3 Jason Behrstock . 3 Igor Belegradek . 3 Collin Bleak . 4 Alexander Borisov . 4 Lewis Bowen . 5 Nikolay Brodskiy . 5 Kai-Uwe Bux . 5 Ruth Charney . 6 Yves de Cornulier . 7 Maciej Czarnecki . 7 Peter John Davidson . 7 Karel Dekimpe . 8 Galina Deryabina . 8 Volker Diekert . 9 Alexander Dranishnikov . 9 Mikhail Ershov . 9 Daniel Farley . 10 Alexander Fel’shtyn . 10 Stefan Forcey . 11 Max Forester . 11 Koji Fujiwara . 12 Rostislav Grigorchuk . 12 Victor Guba . 12 Dan Guralnik . 13 Jose Higes . 13 Sergei Ivanov . 14 Arye Juhasz . 14 Michael Kapovich . 14 Ilya Kazachkov . 15 i Olga Kharlampovich . 15 Anton Klyachko . 15 Alexei Krasilnikov . 16 Leonid Kurdachenko . 16 Yuri Kuzmin . 17 Namhee Kwon . 17 Yuriy Leonov . 18 Rena Levitt . 19 Artem Lopatin . 19 Alex Lubotzky . 19 Alex Lubotzky . 20 Olga Macedonska . 20 Sergey Maksymenko . 20 Keivan Mallahi-Karai . 21 Jason Manning . 21 Luda Markus-Epstein . 21 John Meakin . 22 Alexei Miasnikov . 22 Michael Mihalik . 22 Vahagn H. Mikaelian . 23 Ashot Minasyan . 23 Igor Mineyev . 24 Atish Mitra . 24 Nicolas Monod . 24 Alexey Muranov . 25 Bernhard M¨uhlherr . 25 Volodymyr Nekrashevych . 25 Graham Niblo . 26 Alexander Olshanskii . 26 Denis Osin . 27 Panos Papasoglu . 27 Alexandra Pettet . 27 Boris Plotkin . 28 Eugene Plotkin . 28 John Ratcliffe . 29 Vladimir Remeslennikov . 29 Tim Riley . 29 Nikolay Romanovskiy . 30 Lucas Sabalka . 30 Mark Sapir . 31 Paul E. Schupp . 31 Denis Serbin . 32 Lev Shneerson . -
Colloquium Karen Vogtmann, Cornell Maps Into and out of Automorphism Groups of Free Groups
COLLOQUIUM KAREN VOGTMANN, CORNELL MAPS INTO AND OUT OF AUTOMORPHISM GROUPS OF FREE GROUPS GABRIEL C. DRUMMOND-COLE It’s always a pleasure to come to Chicago. I’m happy to be here. I found this picture on your webpage [laughter.] There are strong analogies between outer automorphism groups of free groups and mapping class groups and lattices. I’m going to ignore mapping class groups, although many of the things I’m going to say have to do with those too. Here’s an Escher print of a lattice, but I’m thinking of irreducible lattices in higher rank semisim- ple Lie groups. It’s a discrete subgroup Λ of G so that G/Λ has finite volume. The classical example is Λ = SL(n, Z) ⊂ SL(n, R) which has a finite volume noncompact quotient. Another n n example is Λ = π1(M3) for a hyperbolic manifold. A couple of nonexamples are Z in R , which is reducible, and also not Γ ⊂ P SL(2, R) which are only rank one, so for me n is higher. The other thing is automorphisms of free groups. So for example ρij takes xi to xixj and pre- serves the other generators. There’s also a left multiplication λij which does the same kind of thing, and the permutation eij. Nielsen proved that these three types generate the auto- morphisms. This was in the 1920s and 1930s. Other people interested in this were J. H. C. Whitehead and W. Magnus. They used algebraic and topological methods, but later progress was slow. -
Through Completely Split Train Tracks
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by The University of Utah: J. Willard Marriott Digital Library THE GEOMETRY OF Out(FN) THROUGH COMPLETELY SPLIT TRAIN TRACKS by Derrick Wigglesworth A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Mathematics The University of Utah May 2018 Copyright c Derrick Wigglesworth 2018 All Rights Reserved The University of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Derrick Wigglesworth has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Mladen Bestvina , Chair(s) 21 Feb 2018 Date Approved Kenneth Bromberg , Member 21 Feb 2018 Date Approved Jonathan M. Chaika , Member 21 Feb 2018 Date Approved Mark Feighn , Member 20 Feb 2018 Date Approved Kevin Wortman , Member 21 Feb 2018 Date Approved by Davar Khoshnevisan , Chair/Dean of the Department/College/School of Mathematics and by David B. Kieda , Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT We prove that abelian subgroups of the outer automorphism group of a free group are quasi-isometrically embedded. Our proof uses recent developments in the theory of train track maps by Feighn-Handel. As an application, we prove the rank conjecture for Out(Fn). Then, in joint work with Radhika Gupta, we show that an outer automorphism acts loxodromically on the cyclic splitting complex if and only if it has a filling lamination and no generic leaf of the lamination is carried by a vertex group of a cyclic splitting. This is a direct analog for the cyclic splitting complex of Handel and Mosher’s theorem on loxodromics for the free splitting complex. -
![Arxiv:1610.08545V1 [Math.GR] 26 Oct 2016 Abstract](https://docslib.b-cdn.net/cover/0046/arxiv-1610-08545v1-math-gr-26-oct-2016-abstract-3450046.webp)
Arxiv:1610.08545V1 [Math.GR] 26 Oct 2016 Abstract
The topology and geometry of automorphism groups of free groups Karen Vogtmann∗ Abstract. In the 1970’s Stallings showed that one could learn a great deal about free groups and their automorphisms by viewing the free groups as fundamental groups of graphs and modeling their automorphisms as homotopy equivalences of graphs. Further impetus for using graphs to study automorphism groups of free groups came from the introduction of a space of graphs, now known as Outer space, on which the group Out(Fn) acts nicely. The study of Outer space and its Out(Fn) action continues to give new information about the structure of Out(Fn), but has also found surprising connections to many other groups, spaces and seemingly unrelated topics, from phylogenetic trees to cyclic operads and modular forms. In this talk I will highlight various ways these ideas are currently evolving. 2010 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 20F65; Secondary ??X??. Keywords. Automorphisms of free groups, Outer space 1. Introduction The most basic examples of infinite finitely-generated groups are free groups, with free abelian groups and fundamental groups of closed surfaces close behind. The automorphism groups of these groups are large and complicated, perhaps partly due to the fact that the groups themselves have very little structure that an au- tomorphism needs to preserve. These automorphism groups have been intensely studied both for their intrinsic interest and because of their many ties to other ar- eas of mathematics. Inner automorphisms are well understood, so attention often turns to the outer automorphism group Out(G), i.e. the quotient of Aut(G) by the inner automorphisms. -
The Topology of Out(Fn) 375
ICM 2002 · Vol. III · 1–3 The Topology of Out(Fn) Mladen Bestvina∗ Abstract We will survey the work on the topology of Out(Fn) in the last 20 years or so. Much of the development is driven by the tantalizing analogy with mapping class groups. Unfortunately, Out(Fn) is more complicated and less well-behaved. Culler and Vogtmann constructed Outer Space Xn, the analog of Te- ichm¨uller space, a contractible complex on which Out(Fn) acts with finite stabilizers. Paths in Xn can be generated using “foldings” of graphs, an oper- ation introduced by Stallings to give alternative solutions for many algorithmic questions about free groups. The most conceptual proof of the contractibility of Xn involves folding. There is a normal form of an automorphism, analogous to Thurston’s nor- mal form for surface homeomorphisms. This normal form, called a “(relative) train track map”, consists of a cellular map on a graph and has good prop- erties with respect to iteration. One may think of building an automorphism in stages, adding to the previous stages a building block that either grows exponentially or polynomially. A complicating feature is that these blocks are not “disjoint” as in Thurston’s theory, but interact as upper stages can map over the lower stages. Applications include the study of growth rates (a surprising feature of free group automorphisms is that the growth rate of f is generally different from −1 the growth rate of f ), of the fixed subgroup of a given automorphism, and the proof of the Tits alternative for Out(Fn). -
The Topology of Out(Fn)
ICM 2002 · Vol. III · 1–3 The topology of Out(Fn) Mladen Bestvina∗ 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 57M07, 20F65, 20E08 Keywords and Phrases: Free group, train tracks, Outer space 1. Introduction The aim of this note is to survey some of the topological methods developed in the last 20 years to study the group Out(Fn) of outer automorphisms of a free group Fn of rank n. For an excellent and more detailed survey see also [69]. Stallings’ paper [64] marks the turning point and for the earlier history of the subject the reader is referred to [55]. Out(Fn) is defined as the quotient of the group Aut(Fn) of all auto- morphisms of Fn by the subgroup of inner automorphisms. On one hand, abelianizing n Fn produces an epimorphism Out(Fn) → Out(Z )= GLn(Z), and on the other hand Out(Fn) contains as a subgroup the mapping class group of any compact surface with fundamental group Fn. A leitmotiv in the subject, promoted by Karen Vogtmann, is that Out(Fn) satisfies a mix of properties, some inherited from mapping class groups, and others from arithmetic groups. The table below summarizes the parallels between topological objects associated with these groups. Mapping Out(Fn) GLn(Z) algebraic class groups (arithmetic groups) properties Teichm¨uller Culler-Vogtmann’s GLn(R)/On finiteness properties space Outer space (symmetric spaces) cohomological dimension Thurston train track Jordan growth rates normal form representative normal form fixed points (subgroups) Harer’s bordification of Borel-Serre Bieri-Eckmann bordification Outer space bordification duality measured R-trees flag manifold Kolchin theorem laminations (Furstenberg boundary) Tits alternative Harvey’s ? Tits rigidity curve complex building Outer space is not a manifold and only a polyhedron, imposing a combinatorial character on Out(Fn).