Hyperbolic extensions of free groups from atoroidal ping-pong

Abstract: We prove that all atoroidal automorphisms of $Out(F_N)$ act on the space of projectivized geodesic currents with generalized north-south dynamics. As an application, we produce new examples of non virtually cyclic, free and purely atoroidal subgroups of $Out(F_N)$ such that the corresponding free group extension is hyperbolic. Moreover, these subgroups are not necessarily convex cocompact.