The 4-string braid group has property RD and exponential mesoscopic rank
We prove that the braid group on 4 strings, its central quotient , and the automorphism group of the free group on 2 generators, have the property RD of Haagerup–Jolissaint. We also prove that the braid group is a group of intermediate mesoscopic rank (of dimension 3). More precisely, we show that the above three groups have exponential mesoscopic rank, i.e., that they contain exponentially many large flat balls which are not included in flats.