Properly discontinuous actions versus uniform embeddings

Abstract

Whenever a finitely generated group $G$ acts properly discontinuously by isometries on a metric space $X$, there is an induced uniform embedding (a Lipschitz and uniformly proper map) $\rho :G\to X$ given by mapping $G$ to an orbit. We study when there is a difference between a finitely generated group $G$ acting properly on a contractible $n$-manifold and uniformly embedding into a contractible $n$-manifold. For example, Kapovich and Kleiner showed that there are torsion-free hyperbolic groups that uniformly embed into a contractible $3$-manifold but do not act on a contractible $3$-manifold. We show that $k$-fold products of certain examples do not act on contractible $3k$-manifolds.