Incoherence and fibering of many free-by-free groups

Abstract

We show that free-by-free groups satisfying a homological criterion, which we call excessive homology, are incoherent. This class is large in nature, including many examples of hyperbolic and non-hyperbolic free-by-free groups. We apply this criterion to finite index subgroups of $F_2\rtimes F_n$ to show incoherence of all such groups, and to other similar classes of groups. Furthermore, we show that a large class of groups, including free-by-free, surface-by-surface, and finitely generated-by-RAAG, algebraically fiber if they have excessive homology.