The Tits alternative for visibility spaces

Abstract

Let $\Gamma$ be a finitely generated group acting properly discontinuously by isometries on a visibility CAT(0) space $X$ that satisfies the bounded packing property. We prove that $\Gamma$ satisfies the Tits alternative: it is either almost nilpotent or contains a free nonabelian subgroup of rank $2$. In the former case, it is equivalent to that the cardinality of the limit set of $\Gamma$ in the geometric boundary of $X$ is no greater than $2$. As an application of the Tits alternative, we show that any finitely generated torsion group acting properly discontinuously by isometries on such a space must be a finite group and have a global fixed point.