Commensurators of abelian subgroups of biautomatic groups

Abstract

We show that the commensurator of any finitely generated abelian subgroup $H$ in a biautomatic group centralises a finite-index subgroup of $H$. We deduce that the CAT(0) groups introduced by Leary-Minasyan are either biautomatic or cannot arise as subgroups of biautomatic groups, answering a question posed by Leary-Minasyan and generalising an analogous result for Baumslag-Solitar groups. These are the first examples of CAT(0) groups that are not subgroups of biautomatic groups.