International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences
Volume 2008 (2008), Article ID 976390, 10 pages
doi:10.1155/2008/976390
Research Article

Automorphisms of Right-Angled Coxeter Groups

Mauricio Gutierrez1 and Anton Kaul2

1Department of Mathematics, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA
2Mathematics Department, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407, USA

Received 16 May 2008; Accepted 12 August 2008

Academic Editor: Alexander Rosa

Copyright © 2008 Mauricio Gutierrez and Anton Kaul. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

If (W,S) is a right-angled Coxeter system, then Aut(W) is a semidirect product of the group Aut∘(W) of symmetric automorphisms by the automorphism group of a certain groupoid. We show that, under mild conditions, Aut∘(W) is a semidirect product of Inn(W) by the quotient Out∘(W)=Aut∘(W)/Inn(W). We also give sufficient conditions for the compatibility of the two semidirect products. When this occurs there is an induced splitting of the sequence 1→Inn(W)→Aut(W)→Out(W)→1 and consequently, all group extensions 1→W→G→Q→1 are trivial.