We prove that for any infinite countable amenable group $G$, any $ε> 0$ and any finite subset $K\subset G$, there exists a tiling (partition of $G$ into finite "tiles" using only finitely many "shapes"), where all the tiles are $(K; ε)$-invariant. Moreover, our tiling has topological entropy zero (i.e., subexponential complexity of patterns). As an application, we construct a free action of $G$ (in the sense that the mappings, associated to different from unity elements of $G$, have no fixpoints), on a zero-dimensional space, and which has topological entropy zero.
We show that every probability-measure-preserving action of a countable amenable group G can be tiled, modulo a null set, using finitely many finite subsets of G ("shapes") with prescribed approximate invariance so that the collection of tiling centers for each shape is Borel. This is a dynamical version of the Downarowicz--Huczek--Zhang tiling theorem for countable amenable groups and strengthens the Ornstein--Weiss Rokhlin lemma. As an application we prove that, for every countably infinite amenable group G, the crossed product of a generic free minimal action of G on the Cantor set is Z-sta…
In this paper we study geometric versions of Burnside's Problem and the von Neumann Conjecture. This is done by considering the notion of a translation-like action. Translation-like actions were introduced by Kevin Whyte as a geometric analogue of subgroup containment. Whyte proved a geometric version of the von Neumann Conjecture by showing that a finitely generated group is non-amenable if and only if it admits a translation-like action by any (equivalently every) non-abelian free group. We strengthen Whyte's result by proving that this translation-like action can be chosen to be transitive …
We construct the first aperiodic tiles for two amenable 3-dimensional Lie groups: Sol and the Heisenberg group. Our construction relies on the use of higher-dimensional uniformly finite homology. In particular, we settle completely the existence of aperiodic tiles for all of the non-compact geometries of 3-manifolds appearing in the geometrization conjecture.
We explore the connections between automata, groups, limit spaces of self-similar actions, and tilings. In particular, we show how a group acting ``nicely'' on a tree gives rise to a self-covering of a topological groupoid, and how the group can be reconstructed from the groupoid and its covering. The connection is via finite-state automata. These define decomposition rules, or self-similar tilings, on leaves of the solenoid associated with the covering.
We present a technique to lift some tilings of the discrete hyperbolic plane -- tilings defined by a 1D substitution -- into a zero entropy subshift of finite type (SFT) on non-abelian amenable Baumslag-Solitar groups $BS(1,n)$ for $n\geq2$. For well chosen hyperbolic tilings, this SFT is also aperiodic and minimal. As an application we construct a strongly aperiodic SFT on $BS(1,n)$ with a hierarchical structure, which is an analogue of Robinson's construction on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ or Goodman-Strauss's on $\mathbb{H}_2$.
In this paper we show that membership in finitely generated submonoids is undecidable for the free metabelian group of rank 2 and for the wreath product $\mathbb Z\wr (\mathbb Z\times \mathbb Z)$. We also show that subsemimodule membership is undecidable for finite rank free $(\mathbb Z\times \mathbb Z)$-modules. The proof involves an encoding of Turing machines via tilings. We also show that rational subset membership is undecidable for two-dimensional lamplighter groups.
The goal of this article is to study results and examples concerning finitely presented covers of finitely generated amenable groups. We collect examples of groups $G$ with the following properties: (i) $G$ is finitely generated, (ii) $G$ is amenable, e.g. of intermediate growth, (iii) any finitely presented group $E$ with a quotient isomorphic to $G$ contains non-abelian free subgroups, or the stronger (iii') any finitely presented group with a quotient isomorphic to $G$ is large.
There are several natural families of groups acting on rooted trees for which every member is known to be amenable. It is, however, unclear what the elementary amenable members of these families look like. Towards clarifying this situation, we here study elementary amenable bounded automata groups. We are able to isolate the elementary amenable bounded automata groups in three natural subclasses of bounded automata groups. In particular, we show that iterated monodromy groups of post-critically finite polynomials are either virtually abelian or not elementary amenable.
We prove that any finitely generated elementary amenable group of zero (algebraic) entropy contains a nilpotent subgroup of finite index or, equivalently, any finitely generated elementary amenable group of exponential growth is of uniformly exponential growth. We also show that 0 is an accumulation point of the set of entropies of elementary amenable groups.
Let W be a Weyl group, presented as a crystallographic reflection group on a Euclidean vector space V, and C an open Weyl chamber. In a recent paper, Waldspurger proved that the images (id-w)(C), for Weyl group elements w, are all disjoint, and their union is the closed cone spanned by the positive roots. We show that similarly, if A is the Weyl alcove, the images (id-w)(A), for affine Weyl group elements w, are all disjoint, and their union is V.
We consider groups of automorphisms of locally finite trees, and give conditions on its subgroups that imply that they are not elementary amenable. This covers all known examples of groups that are not elementary amenable and act on the trees: groups of intermediate growths and Basilica group, by giving a more straightforward proof. Moreover, we deduce that all finitely generated branch groups are not elementary amenable, which was conjectured by Grigorchuk.
Whyte showed that any quasi-isometry between non-amenable groups is a bounded distance from a bijection. In contrast this paper shows that for amenable groups, inclusion of a proper subgroup of finite index is never a bounded distance from a bijection.
We consider a finitely generated group acting minimally on a compact space by homeomorphsims, and assume that the Schreier graph of at least one orbit is quasi-isometric to a line. We show that the topological full group of such an action is amenable.
Using probabilistic methods, Collins and Dykema proved that the free product of two sofic groups amalgamated over a monotileably amenable subgroup is sofic as well. We show that the restriction is unnecessary; the free product of two sofic groups amalgamated over an arbitrary amenable subgroup is sofic. We also prove a group theoretical analogue of a result of Kenley Jung. A finitely generated group is amenable if and only if it has only one sofic representation up to conjugacy equivalence.
In this paper, a group is called weakly amenable if its left regular representation is not uniformly isolated from the trivial representation. First examples of finitely generated non-amenable weakly amenable groups are constructed.
The subgroup structure of Thompson's group F is not yet fully understood. The group F is a subgroup of the group PL(I) of orientation preserving, piecewise linear self homeomorphisms of the unit interval and this larger group thus also has a poorly understood subgroup structure. It is reasonable to guess that F is the "only" subgroup of PL(I) that is not elementary amenable. In this paper, we explore the complexity of the elementary amenable subgroups of F in an attempt to understand the boundary between the elementary amenable subgroups and the non-elementary amenable. We construct an example…
Let $X$ be a locally compact Hadamard space and $G$ be a totally disconnected group acting continuously, properly and cocompactly on $X$. We show that a closed subgroup of $G$ is amenable if and only if it is (topologically locally finite)-by-(virtually abelian). We are led to consider a set $\bdfine X$ which is a refinement of the visual boundary $\bd X$. For each $x \in \bdfine X$, the stabilizer $G_x$ is amenable.
We show that the class of amalgamated free products of two free groups over a cyclic subgroup admits amenable, faithful and transitive actions on infinite countable sets. This work generalizes the results on such actions for doubles of free group on 2 generators.
We give a simple and unified proof showing that the unrestricted wreath product of a weakly sofic, sofic, linear sofic, or hyperlinear group by an amenable group is weakly sofic, sofic, linear sofic, or hyperlinear, respectively. By means of the Kaloujnine-Krasner theorem, this implies that group extensions with amenable quotients preserve the four aforementioned metric approximation properties. We also discuss the case of co-amenable groups.
A group $G$ is called mixed identity-free if for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$ and every $w \in G \ast F_n$ there exists a homomorphism $φ: G \ast F_n \rightarrow G$ such that $φ$ is the identity on $G$ and $φ(w)$ is nontrivial. In this paper, we make a modification to the construction of elementary amenable lacunary hyperbolic groups given by Ol'shanskii, Osin, and Sapir to produce finitely generated elementary amenable groups which are mixed identity-free. As a byproduct of this construction, we also obtain locally finite $p$-groups which are mixed identity-free.
We construct a limit aperiodic coloring of hyperbolic groups. Also we construct limit strongly aperiodic strictly balanced tilings of the Davis complex for all Coxeter groups.
Two new Elnitsky tilings for Coxeter groups of type $\mathrm{B}$ are displayed as certain subtilings. Additionally, a new tiling for the non-crystallographic Coxeter group of type $\mathrm{H}_3$ is obtained, described as a $\mathrm{D}_6$-subtiling.
We prove that a finitely generated, right-angled, hyperbolic Coxeter group can be quasiisometrically embedded into the product of n binary trees, where n is the chromatic number of the group. As application we obtain certain strongly aperiodic tilings of the Davis complex of these groups.
We give new examples of simple finitely generated groups arising from actions of free abelian groups on the Cantor sets. As particular examples, we discuss groups of interval exchange transformations, and a group naturally associated with the Penrose tilings. Many groups in this class are amenable.
The recent articles of Waldspurger and Meinrenken contained the results of tilings formed by the sets of type $(1-w)C^\circ$, $w\in W$, where $W$ is a linear or affine Weyl group, and $C^\circ$ is an open kernel of a fundamental chamber $C$ of the group $W$. In this article we generalize these results to cocompact hyperbolic reflection groups. We also give more clear and simple proofs of the Waldspurger and Meinrenken theorems.
For a locally compact abelian group $G$ a simple proof is given for the known fact that a bounded domain $Ω$ tiles $G$ with translations by a lattice $Λ$ if and only if the set of characters of $G$ indexed by the dual lattice of $Λ$ is an orthogonal basis of $L^2(Ω).$ The proof uses simple techniques from Harmonic Analysis.
By classifying $S$-maximal amenable subgroups of algebraic groups over a global field of characteristic zero, we obtain a complete classification of maximal amenable subgroups up to commensurability in the respective arithmetic groups. Futhermore, we prove that these commensurably maximal amenable subgroups are singular and therefore give rise to maximal amenable von Neumann subalgebras.
We initiate a quantitative study of measure equivalence (and orbit equivalence) between finitely generated groups, which extends the classical setting of $\mathrm L^p$ measure equivalence. In this paper, our main focus will be on amenable groups, for which we prove both rigidity and flexibility results. On the rigidity side, we prove a general monotonicity property satisfied by the isoperimetric profile, which implies in particular its invariance under $\mathrm L^1$ measure equivalence. This yields explicit "lower bounds" on how integrable a measure coupling between two amenable groups can be.…
We prove that the approximation conjecture of Luck holds for all amenable groups in the complex group algebra case. This result was previously proved by Dodziuk, Linnell, Mathai, Schick and Yates under the assumption that the group is torsion-free elementary amenable.
We prove that every amenable group of cohomological dimension two whose integral group ring is a domain is solvable and investigate certain homological finiteness properties of groups that satisfy the analytic zero divisor conjecture and act on an acyclic CW-complex with amenable stabilisers.
We prove that every ergodic amenable action of an algebraic group over a local field of characteristic zero is induced from an ergodic action of an amenable subgroup.
We give a thorough analysis of those subgroups of SO(3) generated by rotations about perpendicular axes by 2π/p and 2π/q. A corollary is that such a group is the free product of the cyclic groups of rotations about the separate axes if and only if p,q\ge 3 and are both odd. These groups are naturally associated with a family of hierarchical tilings of Euclidean 3-space.
We introduce the notion of groups of polytope class and show that torsion-free amenable groups satisfying the Atiyah Conjecture possess this property. A direct consequence is the homotopy invariance of the $L^2$-torsion polytope among $G$-CW-complexes for these groups. As another application we prove that the $L^2$-torsion polytope of an amenable group vanishes provided that it contains a non-abelian elementary amenable normal subgroup.
In this note, we construct torsion-free countable, amenable, weakly mixing groups, which answer a question of V. Bergelson. Some results related to verbal subgroups and crystallographic groups are also presented.
We show that the group C*-algebra of any elementary amenable group is quasidiagonal. This is an offspring of recent progress in the classification theory of nuclear C*-algebras.
We investigate the notion of relatively amenable topological action and show that the action of Thompson's group $T$ on $S^1$ is relatively amenable with respect to Thompson's group $F$. We use this to conclude that $F$ is exact if and only if $T$ is exact. Moreover, we prove that the groupoid of germs of the action of $T$ on $S^1$ is Borel amenable.
Let $A_L$ be the right-angled Artin group associated to a finite flag complex $L$. We show that the amenable category of $A_L$ equals the virtual cohomological dimension of the right-angled Coxeter group $W_L$. In particular, right-angled Artin groups satisfy a question of Capovilla--Löh--Moraschini proposing an inequality between the amenable category and Farber's topological complexity.
We study under which condition an amalgamated free product or an HNN-extension over a finite subgroup admits an amenable, transitive and faithful action on an infinite countable set. We show that such an action exists if the initial groups admit an amenable and almost free action with infinite orbits (e.g. virtually free groups or infinite amenable groups). Our result relies on the Baire category Theorem. We extend the result to groups acting on trees.
We construct a finitely presented non-amenable group without free non-cyclic subgroups thus providing a finitely presented counterexample to von Neumann's problem. Our group is an extension of a group of finite exponent n >> 1 by a cyclic group, so it satisfies the identity [x,y]^n = 1.
We prove that for any infinite, maximal amenable subgroup $H$ in a hyperbolic group $G$, the von Neumann subalgebra $LH$ is maximal amenable inside $LG$. It provides many new, explicit examples of maximal amenable subalgebras in II$_1$ factors. We also prove similar maximal amenability results for direct products of relatively hyperbolic groups and orbit equivalence relations arising from measure-preserving actions of such groups.
We introduce an Ulam-type stability condition for positive definite maps defined on a countable group and prove that this condition characterizes amenability.
We study the universal groups of inverse semigroups associated with point sets and with tilings. We focus our attention on two classes of examples. The first class consists of point sets which are obtained by a cut and projection scheme (so-called model sets). Here we introduce another inverse semigroup which is given in terms of the defining data of the projection scheme and related to the model set by the empire congruence. The second class is given by one-dimensional tilings.
We show that elementary amenable groups, which have a bound on the orders of their finite subgroups, admit a finite dimensional model for the classifying space with virtually cyclic isotropy.
In this paper we classify countable locally finite-by-abelian groups up to coarse isomorphism. This classification is derived from a coarse classification of amenable shift-homogeneous metric spaces.
We construct inner amenable groups G with infinite conjugacy classes and such that the associated II_1 factor does not have property Gamma of Murray and von Neumann. This solves a problem posed by Effros in 1975.
A topological group $G$ is B-amenable if and only if every continuous affine action of $G$ on a bounded convex subset of a locally convex space has an approximate fixed point. Similar results hold more generally for slightly uniformly continuous semigroup actions.
We investigate unitarisability of groups by looking at actions on the cone of positive invertible operators of a Hilbert space. This way, we give a geometric prove to a result by Gilles Pisier on the existence of some universal constants for unitarisable groups. By constructing barycenters for finite sets in a some class of geodesic metric spaces, we prove a fixed point theorem for actions of amenable groups by isometries. In particular, we show that extensions of unitarisable groups by amenable groups are unitarisable and virtual unitarisability implies unitarisability and estimate the corres…
