Cobounded orbit map lemma 2026-10-05
A cobounded group action by isometries on a nonempty geodesic metric space admits an orbit map that is a quasi-isometry for a possibly infinite generating set of a group. If is -dense, take . Subdivide a metric geodesic into segments of length at most one and approximate subdivision vertices by orbit points, keeping the endpoints exact. The resulting group increments generate and give
The first estimate includes zero displacement: a nontrivial stabilizer element has length one. No finiteness assertion about survives without properness.
The surviving conclusion is a quasi-isometry from a word metric for a possibly infinite generating set of a group. Finite generation cannot be asserted. Choose and so that is -dense; the cobounded group action hypothesis provides such a choice. Put
This set is symmetric because . The metric geodesic subdivision argument in the next part gives
In particular generates . Apply the same estimates to to obtain the two-sided bounds for the orbit map; its image is -dense. Thus a cobounded isometric action on a metric geodesic space admits an orbit quasi-isometry for a suitable, possibly infinite, generating set. This is the cobounded orbit map lemma.
Infinite stabilizers cause no obstruction to these bounds: all their nonidentity elements belong to and have length one, although their orbit displacement is zero. The additive constant permits precisely this collapse. For example, every group acts coboundedly on a point; its complete Cayley graph for is bounded, but the group need not be finitely generated.