Thin groups of fractions

Abstract

A number of properties of spherical Artin groups extend to Garside groups, defined as the groups of fractions of monoids where least common multiples exist, there is no nontrivial unit, and some additional finiteness conditions are satisfied \cite{Dgk}. Here we investigate a wider class of groups of fractions, called {\it thin}, which are those associated with monoids where minimal common multiples exist, but they are not necessarily unique. Also, we allow units in the involved monoids. The main results are that all thin groups of fractions satisfy a quadratic isoperimetric inequality, and that, under some additional hypotheses, they admit an automatic structure.