On the growth of actions of free products

Abstract

If $G$ is a finitely generated group and $X$ a $G$-set, the growth of the action of $G$ on $X$ is the function that measures the largest cardinality of a ball of radius $n$ in the (possibly non-connected) Schreier graph $\Gamma (G,X)$. We consider the following stability problem: if $G,H$ are finitely generated groups admitting a faithful action of growth bounded above by a function $f$, does the free product $G\ast H$ also admit a faithful action of growth bounded above by $f$? We show that the answer is positive under additional assumptions, and negative in general. In the negative direction, our counter-examples are obtained with $G$ either the commutator subgroup of the topological full group of a minimal and expansive homeomorphism of the Cantor space, or $G$ a Houghton group. In both cases, the group $G$ admits a faithful action of linear growth, and we show that $G\ast H$ admits no faithful action of subquadratic growth provided $H$ is non-trivial. In the positive direction, we describe a class of groups that admit actions of linear growth and is closed under free products and exhibit examples within this class, among which the Grigorchuk group.