On a lemma of Milnor and Schwarz, après Rosendal

Abstract

Perhaps the fundamental theorem of geometric group theory, the Milnor--Schwarz lemma gives conditions under which the orbit map relating the geometry of a geodesic metric space and the word metric on a group acting isometrically on the space is a quasi-isometry. Pioneering work of Rosendal makes these and other techniques of geometric group theory applicable to an arbitrary (topological) group. We give a succinct treatment of the Milnor--Schwarz lemma, setting it within this context. We derive some applications of this theory to non-Archimedean groups, which have plentiful continuous actions on graphs. In particular, we sharpen results of BarNatan and Verberne on actions of "big" mapping class groups on hyperbolic graphs and clarify a project begun by Mann and Rafi to classify these mapping class groups up to quasi-isometry, noting some extensions to the theory of mapping class groups of locally finite infinite graphs and homeomorphism groups of Stone spaces.

21 pages, prepared in Typst (dear arXiv, please accept Typst source!)