Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2009
The main result is a theorem giving several possibilities for the action of a 2-generator group acting on a Λ-tree, generalising the result that, if the action is free then the group is either free or free abelian. This involves investigation of several cases in which the action is shown to be properly discontinuous. This leads to a generalisation of results of Culler and Morgan, characterising abelian, dihedral and irreducible actions on ℝ-trees, to arbitrary Λ-trees.