Related papers: Hyperlinear and sofic groups: a brief guide
Sofic and hyperlinear groups are the countable discrete groups that can be approximated in a suitable sense by finite symmetric groups and groups of unitary matrices. These notions turned out to be very deep and fruitful, and stimulated in…
We prove that Connes' Embedding Conjecture holds for the von Neumann algebras of sofic groups, that is sofic groups are hyperlinear. Hence we provide some new examples of hyperlinearity. We also show that the Determinant Conjecture holds…
We provide a quantitative formulation of the equivalence between hyperlinearity and soficity for amenable groups, showing that every hyperlinear approximation to such a group is essentially produced from a sofic approximation. This…
We define sofic, weakly sofic, linear sofic and hyperlinear metric groups and discuss some issues involving axiomatizability of these classes in continuous logic.
We provide a quantitative formulation of the equivalence between hyperlinearity and soficity for amenable groups, effectively showing how every hyperlinear approximation to such a group is simulated by a suitable sofic approximation. The…
A basic point about hyperbolic groups is that they have "spaces at infinity" which are spaces of homogeneous type in the sense of Coifman and Weiss, and with a lot of self-similarity coming from the group. This short survey deals with some…
We construct an analogue of Neumann's affiliated algebras for sofic group algebras over arbitrary fields. Consequently, we settle Kaplansky's direct finiteness conjecture for sofic groups.
Our monograph presents the foundations of the theory of groups and semigroups acting isometrically on Gromov hyperbolic metric spaces. Our work unifies and extends a long list of results by many authors. We make it a point to avoid any…
A group is surjunctive if every injective cellular automaton on it is also surjective. Gottschalk famously conjectured that all groups are surjunctive. This remains a central open problem in symbolic dynamics and descriptive set theory.…
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…
This is an edited write-up of lecture notes of the 7-th Appalachian set theory workshop of the same title led by the first named author at the Cornell University on November 22, 2008. A draft version of the notes was prepared by the second…
The Heisenberg groups are examples of sub-Riemannian manifolds homeomorphic, but not diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space. Their metric is derived from curves which are only allowed to move in so-called horizontal directions. We report on…
A group $G$ is called $W^*$-superrigid (resp. $C^*$-superrigid) if it is completely recognizable from its von Neumann algebra $L(G)$ (resp. reduced $C^*$-algebra $C_r^*(G)$). Developing new technical aspects in Popa's deformation/rigidity…
We present a new notion of non-positively curved groups: the collection of discrete countable groups acting (AU-)acylindrically on finite products of $\delta$-hyperbolic spaces with general type factors. Inspired by the classical theory of…
The concept of a C-approximable group, for a class of finite groups C, is a common generalization of the concepts of a sofic, weakly sofic, and linear sofic group. Glebsky raised the question whether all groups are approximable by finite…
In this paper, we introduce the classes of weakly surjunctive and linearly surjunctive groups which include all sofic groups and more generally all surjunctive groups. We investigate various properties of such groups and establish in…
We introduce the notion of a ``sofic $\mathcal{C}$-action'' of one group on another by automorphisms, for $\mathcal{C}$ a class of groups. We show that if $\mathcal{C}$ is the class of (i) sofic, (ii) hyperlinear, (iii) linear sofic or (iv)…
We define a metric ultraproduct of topological groups with left-invariant metric, and show that there is a countable sequence of finite groups with left-invariant metric whose metric ultraproduct contains isometrically as a subgroup every…
We introduce and systematically study linear sofic groups and linear sofic algebras. This generalizes amenable and LEF groups and algebras. We prove that a group is linear sofic if and only if its group algebra is linear sofic. We show that…
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…