We define a group as strongly bounded if every isometric action on a metric space has bounded orbits. This latter property is equivalent to the so-called uncountable strong cofinality, recently introduced by G. Bergman.
Our main result is that G^I is strongly bounded when G is a finite, perfect group and I is any set. This strengthens a result of Koppelberg and Tits. We also prove that omega_1-existentially closed groups are strongly bounded.
We study the second bounded cohomology of an amalgamated free product of groups, and an HNN extension of a group. As an application, we have a group with infinitely many ends has infinite dimensional second bounded cohomology.
For profinite branch groups, we first demonstrate the equivalence of the Bergman property, uncountable cofinality, Cayley boundedness, the countable index property, and the condition that every non-trivial normal subgroup is open; compact groups enjoying the last condition are called strongly just infinite. For strongly just infinite profinite branch groups with mild additional assumptions, we verify the invariant automatic continuity property and the locally compact automatic continuity property. Examples are then presented, including the profinite completion of the first Grigorchuk group. As…
Strongly bounded groups are those groups for which every action by isometries on a metric space has orbits of finite diameter. Many groups have been shown to have this property, and all the known infinite examples so far have cardinality at least $2^{\aleph_0}$. We produce examples of strongly bounded groups of many cardinalities, including $\aleph_1$, answering a question of Yves de Cornulier [4]. In fact, any infinite group embeds as a subgroup of a strongly bounded group which is, at most, two cardinalities larger.
In this note we show that if $G$ is a countably infinite abelian group such that $nG=0$ for some integer $n$, then the only locally minimal group topology on $G$ is the discrete one.
We study the action of groups generated by bounded activity automata with infinite alphabets on their orbital Schreier graphs. We introduce an amenability criterion for such groups based on the recurrence of the first level action. This criterion is a natural extension of the result that all groups generated by bounded activity automata with finite alphabets are amenable. Our motivation comes from the investigation of iterated monodromy groups of entire functions.
We give an infinite family of non-abelian strongly real Beauville $p$-groups for every prime $p$ by considering the quotients of triangle groups, and indeed we prove that there are non-abelian strongly real Beauville $p$-groups of order $p^n$ for every $n \geq 3, 5$ or $7$ according as $p \geq 5$ or $p =3$ or $p =2$. This shows that there are strongly real Beauville $p$-groups exactly for the same orders for which there exist Beauville $p$-groups.
We study a class of quasimorphisms of the free group that can be expressed as infinite sums of Brooks quasimorphisms with some nice properties. We then review Heuer's framework of decompositions developed in arXiv:1710.03193, and put these quasimorphisms in that context. This allows us to prove triviality of a number of cup products in the bounded cohomology of the free group with trivial real coefficients. Finally, we introduce free products of decompositions and relate them to Rolli's quasimorphisms of free products. A technical result concerning these, which remains an open question, implie…
We prove that there exist infinitely many a non-abelian strongly real Beauville $p$-group for every prime $p$. Previously only finitely many in the case $p=2$ have been constructed.
Let O be the ring of S-integers in a number field k. We prove that if the group of units O^* is infinite then every matrix in $Γ$ = SL_2(O) is a product of at most 9 elementary matrices. This completes a long line of research in this direction. As a consequence, we obtain that $Γ$ is boundedly generated as an abstract group.
We show that an infinite residually finite boundedly generated group has an infinite chain of finite index subgroups with ranks uniformly bounded, and give (sublinear) upper bounds on the ranks of arbitrary finite index subgroups of boundedly generated groups (examples which come close to achieving these bounds are presented). This proves a strong form of a conjecture of Abert, Jaikin-Zapirain, and Nikolov which asserts that the rank gradient of infinite boundedly generated residually finite groups is $0$. Furthermore, our first result establishes a variant of a conjecture of Lubotzky on the r…
A group is called strongly bounded, if the speed with which it is generated by finitely many conjugacy classes has a positive, lower bound only dependent on the number of the conjugacy classes in question rather than the actual conjugacy classes. Earlier papers by Kedra, Libman and Martin and myself have shown that this is a property common to split Chevalley groups defined using an irreducible root system of rank at least $2$ and the ring of all S-algebraic integers and that the situation is dependent on the number theory of $R$ for ${\rm Sp}_4$ and $G_2.$ In this paper, we will show that ${\…
We give an infinite family of non-abelian strongly real Beauville $p$-groups for any odd prime $p$ by considering the lower central quotients of the free product of two cyclic groups of order $p$. This is the first known infinite family of non-abelian strongly real Beauville $p$-groups.
We introduce the notion of `core growth rate' for strongly synchronizing transducers. We explore some elementary properties of the core growth rate and give examples of transducers with exponential core growth rate. We conjecture that all strongly synchronizing transducers which generate an automaton group of infinite order have exponential core growth rate. There is a connection to the group of automorphisms of the one-sided shift. More specifically, the results of this article are related to the question of whether or not there can exist infinite order automorphisms of the one-sided shift wi…
We study the question how quickly products of a fixed conjugacy class cover the entire group in the projective unitary group of the connected component of the identity of the Calkin algebra, as well as the projective unitary group of a factor von Neumann algebra of type III. Our result is that the number of factors that are needed is as small as permitted by the (essential) operator norm - in analogy to a result of Liebeck-Shalev for non-abelian finite simple groups and analogous results for unitary groups of II_1-factors.
We devise an algorithm which, given a bounded automaton A, decides whether the group generated by A is finite. The solution comes from a description of the infinite sequences having an infinite A-orbit using a deterministic finite-state acceptor. This acceptor can also be used to decide whether the bounded automaton acts level-transitively.
A group is said to be strongly amenable if each of its proximal topological actions has a fixed point. We show that a finitely generated group is strongly amenable if and only if it is virtually nilpotent. More generally, a countable discrete group is strongly amenable if and only if none of its quotients have the infinite conjugacy class property.
Any action of a group $Γ$ on $\mathbb H^3$ by isometries yields a class in degree three bounded cohomology by pulling back the volume cocycle to $Γ$. We prove that the bounded cohomology of finitely generated Kleinian groups without parabolic elements distinguishes the asymptotic geometry of geometrically infinite ends of hyperbolic $3$-manifolds. That is, if two homotopy equivalent hyperbolic manifolds with infinite volume and without parabolic cusps have different geometrically infinite end invariants, then they define a $2$ dimensional subspace of bounded cohomology. Our techniques apply to…
