Iterated asymptotic cones

Abstract

Iterated asymptotic cones have been used by Dru\c{t}u and Sapir to construct a group with uncountably many pairwise non-homeomorphic asymptotic cones. In this paper we define a class of metric spaces which display a wide range of behaviors with respect to iterated asymptotic cones, and we use those to construct examples within the class of groups. Namely, we will show that there exists a group whose iterated cones are pairwise non-homeomorphic, or periodically homeomorphic.