On linear divergence in finitely generated groups

Abstract In this paper, we show that wreath products of groups have linear divergence, and we generalise the argument to permutational wreath products. We also prove that Houghton groups $${\mathcal {H}}_m$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:msub> <mml:mi>H</mml:mi> <mml:mi>m</mml:mi> </mml:msub> </mml:math> with $$m\ge 2$$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mrow> <mml:mi>m</mml:mi> <mml:mo>≥</mml:mo> <mml:mn>2</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> and Baumslag-Solitar groups have linear divergence. We explain how to generalise the argument for wreath products so that it holds for halo products of groups whose halo is large-scale commutative. Finally, we show that wreath products of graphs and Diestel-Leader graphs have linear divergence. The argument for Diestel-Leader graphs is further generalised to horocyclic products of proper, geodesically complete, Busemann $$\delta $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>δ</mml:mi> </mml:math> -hyperbolic spaces that are uniformly not a quasi-line.