Hyperbolic groups and local connectivity

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to give an exposition of some results of Bestvina-Mess on local connectivity of the boundary of a one-ended word hyperbolic group. We also give elementary proofs that all hyperbolic groups are semistable at infinity and their boundaries are linearly connected in the one-ended case. Geoghegan first observed that semistability at infinity is a consequence of local connectivity using ideas from shape theory, and Bonk-Kleiner proved linear connectivity using analytical methods. The methods in this paper are closely based on the original ideas of Bestvina-Mess.