Co-contractions of graphs and right-angled Artin groups

Abstract

We define an operation on finite graphs, called co-contraction. By showing that co-contraction of a graph induces an injective map between right-angled Artin groups, we exhibit a family of graphs, without any induced cycle of length at least 5, such that the right-angled Artin groups on those graphs contain hyperbolic surface groups. This gives the negative answer to a question raised by Gordon, Long and Reid.