We construct a sofic approximation of $\mathbb F_2\times\mathbb F_2$ that is not essentially a "branched cover" of a sofic approximation by homomorphisms. This answers a question of L. Bowen.
Given the large class of groups already known to be sofic, there is seemingly a shortfall in results concerning their permanence properties. We address this problem for wreath products, and in particular investigate the behaviour of more general metric approximations of groups under wreath products. Our main result is the following. Suppose that $H$ is a sofic group and $G$ is a countable, discrete group. If $G$ is sofic, hyperlinear, weakly sofic, or linear sofic, then $G\wr H$ is also sofic, hyperlinear, weakly sofic, or linear sofic respectively. In each case we construct relevant metric ap…
We give new characterizations of sofic groups: -- A group $G$ is sofic if and only if it is a subgroup of a quotient of a direct product of alternating or symmetric groups. -- A group $G$ is sofic if and only if any system of equations solvable in all alternating groups is solvable over $G$. The last characterization allows to express soficity of an existentially closed group by $\forall\exists$-sentences. Keywords: sofic groups, approximations, equations over groups.
A group is sofic when every finite subset can be well approximated in a finite symmetric group. No example of a non-sofic group is known. Higman's group, which is a circular amalgamation of four copies of the Baumslag--Solitar group, is a candidate. Here we contribute to the discussion of the problem of its soficity in two ways. We construct variations on Higman's group replacing the Baumslag--Solitar group by other groups $G$. We give an elementary condition on $G$, enjoyed for example by $\mathbb{Z} \wr \mathbb{Z}$ and the integral Heisenberg group, under which the resulting group is sofic. …
We prove the algebraic eigenvalue conjecture of J. Dodziuk, P. Linnell, V. Mathai, T. Schick and S. Yates for sofic groups. Moreover, we give restrictions on the spectral measure of elements in the integral group ring. Finally, we define integer operators and prove a quantization of the operator norm below 2.
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.
We show that for every sofic chunk $E$ there is a bijective homomorphism $f: E_c \rightarrow E$, where $E_c$ is a chunk of the group of computable permutations of $\mathbb{N}$ so that the approximating morphisms of $E$ can be viewed as restrictions of permutations of $E_c$ to finite subsets of $\mathbb{N}$. Using this we study some relevant effectivity conditions associated with sofic chunks and their profiles.
This is a paper with two aims. First, we show that the map from $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ to itself defined by exponentiation $x\to m^x$ has few $3$-cycles -- that is to say, the number of cycles of length three is $o(p)$. This improves on previous bounds. Our second objective is to contribute to an ongoing discussion on how to find a non-sofic group. In particular, we show that, if the Higman group were sofic, there would be a map from $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ to itself, locally like an exponential map, yet satisfying a recurrence property.
We undertake a systematic study of the approximation properties of the topological and measurable versions of the coarse boundary groupoid associated to a sequence of finite graphs of bounded degree. On the topological side, we prove that asymptotic coarse embeddability of the graph sequence into a Hilbert space is equivalent to the coarse boundary groupoid being topologically a-T-menable, thus answering a question by Rufus Willett. On the measure-theoretic side, we prove that measure-theoretic amenability resp. a-T-menability of the coarse boundary groupoid are related to hyperfiniteness and …
We prove Bowen's conjecture that every sequence of finite graphs that locally converges to the Cayley graph of a countably infinite group with Kazhdan Property (T) is essentially a vertex-disjoint union of expander graphs. We characterize graph sequences that are essentially a vertex-disjoint union of expander graphs in terms of the Markov operator.
A sofic group $G$ is said to be flexibly stable if every sofic approximation to $G$ can converted to a sequence of disjoint unions of Schreier graphs by modifying an asymptotically vanishing proportion of edges. We establish that if $\mathrm{PSL}_d(\mathbb{Z})$ is flexibly stable for some $d \geq 5$ then there exists a group which is not sofic.
We introduce notions of a constraint metric approximation and of a constraint stability of a metric approximation. This is done in the language of group equations with coefficients. We give an example of a group which is not constraintly sofic. In building it, we find a sofic representation of free group with trivial commutant among extreme points of the convex structure on the space of sofic representations. We consider the centralizer equation in permutations as an instance of this new general setting. We characterize permutations $p\in S_k$ whose centralizer is stable in permutations with r…
We introduce and systematically study a profile function whose asymptotic behavior quantifies the dimension or the size of a metric approximation of a finitely generated group $G$ by a family of groups $\mathcal{F}=\{(G_α, d_α, k_α, \varepsilon_{α})\}_{α\in I, }$ where each group $G_α$ is equipped with a bi-invariant metric $d_α$ and a dimension $k_α$, for strictly positive real numbers $\varepsilon_{α}$ such that $\inf_{α}\varepsilon_{α}>0$. Through the notion of a residually amenable profile that we introduce, our approach generalizes classical isoperimetric (aka Folner) profiles of amenable…
Let $G$ be a group. Let $X$ be a connected algebraic group over an algebraically closed field $K$. Denote by $A=X(K)$ the set of $K$-points of $X$. We study a class of endomorphisms of pro-algebraic groups, namely algebraic group cellular automata over $(G,X,K)$. They are cellular automata $τ\colon A^G \to A^G$ whose local defining map is induced by a homomorphism of algebraic groups $X^M \to X$ where $M\subset G$ is a finite memory set of $τ$. Our first result is that when $G$ is sofic, such an algebraic group cellular automaton $τ$ is invertible whenever it is injective and $\text{char}(K)=0…
This thesis aims to serve as an introduction to the theory of quasitilings for amenable groups. In order to showcase the power of this theory, we focus on the study of the Sofic Lück Approximation Conjecture, which can be proven for amenable groups by making use of quasitilings. The first four chapters of the thesis are an exposition of the aforementioned topics, collected from the literature. After that, in the fifth and final chapter we present some new results related to the Sofic Lück Approximation Conjecture for amenable groups over discrete valuation rings and number fields.
We prove that the topological full group $[[X]]$ of a two-sided full shift $X = Σ^{\mathbb{Z}}$ contains every right-angled Artin group (also called a graph group). More generally, we show that the family of subgroups with "linear look-ahead" is closed under graph products. We show that the lamplighter group $\mathbb{Z}_2 \wr \mathbb{Z}$ embeds in $[[X]]$, and conjecture that it does not embed in $[[X]]$ with linear look-ahead. Generalizing the lamplighter group, we show that whenever $G$ acts with "unique moves" (or at least "move-$A$ithfully"), we have $A \wr G \leq [[X]]$ for finite abelian…
The super approximation property of $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z}/q\mathbb{Z}) \times \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z}/q\mathbb{Z}) \times \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{Z}/q\mathbb{Z})$
Let $Γ_2\subseteq Γ_1$ be finitely generated subgroups of ${\rm GL}_{n_0}(\mathbb{Z}[1/q_0])$. For $i=1$ or $2$, let $\mathbb{G}_i$ be the Zariski-closure of $Γ_i$ in $({\rm GL}_{n_0})_{\mathbb{Q}}$, $\mathbb{G}_i^{\circ}$ be the Zariski-connected component of $\mathbb{G}_i$, and let $G_i$ be the closure of $Γ_i$ in $\prod_{p\nmid q_0}{\rm GL}_{n_0}(\mathbb{Z}_p)$. In this article we prove that, if $\mathbb{G}_1^{\circ}$ is the smallest closed normal subgroup of $\mathbb{G}_1^{\circ}$ which contains $\mathbb{G}_2^{\circ}$ and $Γ_2\curvearrowright G_2$ has spectral gap, then $Γ_1\curvearrowrigh…