Morse elements in Garside groups are strongly contracting

Abstract

We prove that in the Cayley graph of any braid group modulo its center $B_n/Z(B_n)$, equipped with Garside's generating set, the axes of all pseudo-Anosov braids are strongly contracting. More generally, we consider a Garside group $G$ of finite type with cyclic center. We prove that in the Cayley graph of $G/Z(G)$, equipped with the Garside generators, the axis of any Morse element is strongly contracting. As a consequence, we prove that Morse elements act loxodromically on the additional length graph of $G$.