Characterizing divergence and thickness in right-angled Coxeter groups

Abstract: We completely classify the possible divergence functions for right-angled Coxeter groups (RACGs). In particular, we show that the divergence of any such group is either polynomial, exponential or infinite. We prove that a RACG is strongly thick of order k if and only if its divergence function is a polynomial of degree k+1. Moreover, we show that the exact divergence function of a RACG can easily be computed from its defining graph by an invariant we call the hypergraph index.