Irrational Stable Commutator Length in Finitely Presented Groups

We give examples of finitely presented groups containing elements with irrational (in fact, transcendental) stable commutator length, thus answering in the negative a question of M. Gromov. Our examples come from 1-dimensional dynamics, and are related to the generalized Thompson groups studied by M. Stein, I. Liousse and others.