We introduce two notions of algebraic entropy for actions of cancellative right amenable semigroups $S$ on discrete abelian groups $A$ by endomorphisms; these extend the classical algebraic entropy for endomorphisms of abelian groups, corresponding to the case $S=\mathbb N$. We investigate the fundamental properties of the algebraic entropy and compute it in several examples, paying special attention to the case when S is an amenable group. For actions of cancellative right amenable monoids on torsion abelian groups, we prove the so called Addition Theorem. In the same setting, we see that a Bridge Theorem connects the algebraic entropy with the topological entropy of the dual action by means of the Pontryagin duality, so that we derive an Addition Theorem for the topological entropy of actions of cancellative left amenable monoids on totally disconnected compact abelian groups.
We prove an analogue of Fekete's lemma for subadditive right-subinvariant functions defined on the finite subsets of a cancellative left-amenable semigroup. This extends results previously obtained in the case of amenable groups by E. Lindenstrauss and B. Weiss and by M. Gromov.
Let $S$ be a cancellative left-amenable semigroup and let $A$ be a finite set. We prove that every pre-injective cellular automaton $τ\colon A^S \to A^S$ is surjective.
We say that an action of a countable discrete inverse semigroup on a locally compact Hausdorff space is amenable if its groupoid of germs is amenable in the sense of Anantharaman-Delaroche and Renault. We then show that for a given inverse semigroup $S$, the action of $S$ on its spectrum is amenable if and only if every action of $S$ is amenable.
We revisit Sz.-Nagy's criteria for similarity of Hilbert space bounded linear operators to isometries or unitaries and present new ones. We also discuss counterparts of the Dixmier-Day theorem concerning bounded representations of amenable groups and semigroups. We highlight the role of Folner sets in similarity problems in both settings of unimodular, $σ$-compact, amenable groups and in discrete semigroups possessing the Strong Folner condition (SFC).
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.
A new flavour of amenability for discrete semigroups is proposed that generalises group amenability and follows from a \Folner-type condition. Some examples are explored, to argue that this new notion better captures some essential ideas of amenability. A semigroup $S$ is left fairly amenable if, and only if, it supports a mean $m\in\ell^\infty(S)^*$ satisfying $m(f) = m(s\ast f)$ whenever $s\ast f\in\ell^\infty(S)$, thus justifying the nomenclature "fairly amenable''.
The semigroup game is a two-person zero-sum game defined on a semigroup S as follows: Players 1 and 2 choose elements x and y in S, respectively, and player 1 receives a payoff f(xy) defined by a function f from S to [-1,1]. If the semigroup is amenable in the sense of Day and von Neumann, one can extend the set of classical strategies, namely countably additive probability measures on S, to include some finitely additive measures in a natural way. This extended game has a value and the players have optimal strategies. This theorem extends previous results for the multiplication game on a comp…
Let $M$ be a cancellative monoid. It is known~\cite{Ta54} that if $M$ is left amenable then the monoid ring $K[M]$ satisfies Ore condition, that is, there exist nontrivial common right multiples for the elements of this ring. In~\cite{Don10} Donnelly shows that a partial converse to this statement is true. Namely, if the monoid $\mathbb Z^{+}[M]$ of all elements of $\mathbb Z[M]$ with positive coefficients has nonzero common right multiples, then $M$ is left amenable. He asks whether the converse is true for this particular statement. We show that the converse is false even for the case of gro…
We investigate the notion of Connes-amenability for dual Banach algebras, as introduced by Runde, for bidual algebras and weighted semigroup algebras. We provide some simplifications to the notion of a $σWC$-virtual diagonal, as introduced by Runde, especially in the case of the bidual of an Arens regular Banach algebra. We apply these results to discrete, weighted, weakly cancellative semigroup algebras, showing that these behave in the same way as C$^*$-algebras with regards Connes-amenability of the bidual algebra. We also show that for each one of these cancellative semigroup algebras $l^1…
In this short note we study the entropy for algebraic actions of certain amenable groups. The possible values for this entropy are studied. Various fundamental results about certain classes of amenable groups are reproved using elementary arguments and the entropy invariant. We provide a natural decomposition of the entropy into summands contributed by individual primes and a summand corresponding to infinity. These results extend previous work by Lind and Ward on p-adic entropy.
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.
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 present some fundamental results on (possibly nonlinear) algebraic semigroups and monoids. These include a version of Chevalley's structure theorem for irreducible algebraic monoids, and the description of all algebraic semigroup structures on curves and complete varieties.
Let $S$ be an algebraic semigroup (not necessarily linear) defined over a field $F$. We show that there exists a positive integer $n$ such that $x^n$ belongs to a subgroup of $S(F)$ for any $x \in S(F)$. In particular, the semigroup $S(F)$ is strongly π-regular.
In this note, we prove that a semigroup $S$ is left amenable if and only if every two nonzero elements of $\ell^1_+(S)$ have a common nonzero right multiple, where $\ell^1_+(S)$ is the positive part of the Banach algebra $\ell^1(S)$, or equivalently the semiring of finite measures on $S$. This characterization of amenability is new even for groups.
We study definably amenable NIP groups. We develop a theory of generics, showing that various definitions considered previously coincide, and study invariant measures. Applications include: characterization of regular ergodic measures, a proof of the conjecture of Petrykowski connecting existence of bounded orbits with definable amenability in the NIP case, and the Ellis group conjecture of Newelski and Pillay connecting the model-theoretic connected component of an NIP group with the ideal subgroup of its Ellis enveloping semigroup.
Let $R$ be a ring, let $G$ be an amenable group and let $R\ast G$ be a crossed product. The goal of this paper is to construct, starting with a suitable additive function $L$ on the category of left modules over $R$, an additive function on a subcategory of the category of left modules over $R\ast G$, which coincides with the whole category if $L({}_RR) <\infty$. This construction can be performed using a dynamical invariant associated with the original function $L$, called algebraic $L$-entropy. We apply our results to two classical problems on group rings: the Stable Finiteness and the Zero-…
We prove an inverse theorem for the Gowers $U^2$-norm for maps $G\to\mathcal M$ from an countable, discrete, amenable group $G$ into a von Neumann algebra $\mathcal M$ equipped with an ultraweakly lower semi-continuous, unitarily invariant (semi-)norm $\Vert\cdot\Vert$. We use this result to prove a stability result for unitary-valued $\varepsilon$-representations $G\to\mathcal U(\mathcal M)$ with respect to $\Vert\cdot \Vert$.
A semigroup $S$ is called an equational domain if any finite union of algebraic sets over $S$ is algebraic. We prove if a completely regular semigroup $S$ is an equational domain then $S$ is completely simple.
A semigroup $S$ is an equational domain if any finite union of algebraic sets over $S$ is algebraic. We prove that every nontrivial semigroup in the standard language $\{\cdot\}$ is not an equational domain.
Consider an algebraic semigroup $S$ and its closed subscheme of idempotents, $E(S)$. When $S$ is commutative, we show that $E(S)$ is finite and reduced; if in addition $S$ is irreducible, then $E(S)$ is contained in a smallest closed irreducible subsemigroup of $S$, and this subsemigroup is an affine toric variety. It follows that $E(S)$ (viewed as a partially ordered set) is the set of faces of a rational polyhedral convex cone. On the other hand, when $S$ is an irreducible algebraic monoid, we show that $E(S)$ is smooth, and its connected components are conjugacy classes of the unit group.
A semigroup $S$ is an equational domain if any finite union of algebraic sets over $S$ is algebraic. We prove that if an inverse semigroup $S$ is an equational domain in the extended language $\{\cdot,{}^{-1}\}\cup\{s|s\in S\}$ then $S$ is a group.
We explore a natural class of semigroups that have word problem decidable by finite state automata. Among the main results are invariance of this property under change of generators, invariance under basic algebraic constructions and algebraic properties of these semigroups.
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.
Given a group $X$ we study the algebraic structure of the compact right-topological semigroup $λ(X)$ consisting of maximal linked systems on $X$. This semigroup contains the semigroup $β(X)$ of ultrafilters as a closed subsemigroup. We construct a faithful representation of the semigroup $λ(X)$ in the semigroup of all self-maps of the power-set of $X$ and using this representation describe the structure of minimal ideal and minimal left ideals of $λ(X)$ for each twinic group $X$. The class of twinic groups includes all amenable groups and all groups with periodic commutators but does not inclu…
In order to investigate the relationship between weak amenability and the Haagerup property for groups, we introduce the weak Haagerup property, and we prove that having this approximation property is equivalent to the existence of a semigroup of Herz-Schur multipliers generated by a proper function. It is then shown that a (not necessarily proper) generator of a semigroup of Herz-Schur multipliers splits into a positive definite kernel and a conditionally negative definite kernel. We also show that the generator has a particularly pleasant form if and only if the group is amenable. In the sec…
We give algebraic characterizations of the type I and CCR properties for locally compact second countable, ample Hausdorff groupoids in terms of subquotients of their Boolean inverse semigroups of compact open bisections. It yields in turn algebraic characterizations of both properties for inverse semigroups in terms of subquotients of their booleanizations.
We study algebraic and topological properties of topological semigroups containing a copy of the bicyclic semigroup C(p,q). We prove that each topological semigroup S with pseudocompact square contains no dense copy of C(p,q). On the other hand, we construct a (consistent) example of a pseudocompact (countably compact) Tychonov semigroup containing a copy of C(p,q).
We give a survey on results regarding self-similar and automaton presentations of free groups and semigroups and related products. Furthermore, we discuss open problems and results with respect to algebraic decision problems in this area.
