We prove a variety of fixed-point theorems for groups acting on CAT (0) spaces. Fixed points are obtained by a bootstrapping technique, whereby increasingly large subgroups are proved to have fixed points: specific configurations in the subgroup lattice of are exhibited and Helly-type theorems are developed to prove that the fixed-point sets of the subgroups in the configuration intersect. In this way, we obtain lower bounds on the smallest dimension FixDim () +1 in which various groups of geometric interest can act on a complete CAT (0) space without a global fixed point. For automorphism groups of free groups, we prove FixDim (Aut (Fₙ) ) 2n/3.
Martin R. Bridson (Thu,) studied this question.