Related papers: The Dixmier problem, lamplighters and Burnside gro…

We show that free Burnside groups of sufficiently large odd exponent are non--amenable in a certain strong sense, more precisely, their left regular representations are isolated from the trivial representation uniformly on finite generating…

We establish a connection between Dixmier's unitarisability problem and the expected degree of random forests on a group. As a consequence, a residually finite group is non-unitarisable if its first L2-Betti number is non-zero or if it is…

A well-known theorem of Day and Dixmier states that any uniformly bounded representation of an amenable locally compact group $G$ on a Hilbert space is similar to a unitary representation. Within the category of locally compact quantum…

The question of whether or not all finitely presented groups are semistable at infinity has been studied for over 40 years. In 1986, we defined what it means for a finitely generated group to be semistable at infinity - in analogy with the…

We give a new formulation of some of our recent results on the following problem: if all uniformly bounded representations on a discrete group $G$ are similar to unitary ones, is the group amenable? In \S 5, we give a new proof of…

In 1955 George Mackey suggested that there is a fundamental dichotomy in the unitary representation theory of locally compact second countable groups. He felt that there cannnot be a reasonable classification theory for the unitary…

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…

It is well known that a dense subgroup $G$ of the complex unitary group $U(d)$ cannot be amenable as a discrete group when $d>1$. When $d$ is large enough we give quantitative versions of this phenomenon in connection with certain estimates…

The Burnside Problem asks whether a finitely generated group of exponent n is finite. We present a solution for 2-generator groups of prime power exponent. Results of P. Hall and G. Higman extends the finiteness conclusion to groups having…

Let G be an amenable group, let X be a Banach space and let \pi : G --> B(X) be a bounded representation. We show that if the set {\pi(t) : t \in G} is gamma-bounded then \pi extends to a bounded homomorphism w : C*(G) --> B(X) on the group…

The irreducible decomposition of a unitary representation often contains continuous spectrum when restricted to a non-compact subgroup. The author singles out a nice class of branching problems where each irreducible summand occurs…

Recently V.Drinfeld formulated a number of problems in quantum group theory. In particular, he suggested to consider ``set-theoretical'' solutions of the quantum Yang-Baxter equation, i.e. solutions given by a permutation $R$ of the set…

We introduce and study several amenability properties for unitary corepresentations and *-representations of algebraic quantum groups, which may be used to characterize amenability or co-amenability of such groups. As a background for this…

We study a family of groups consisting of the simplest extensions of lamplighter groups. We use these groups to answer multiple open questions in combinatorial group theory, providing groups that exhibit various combinations of properties:…

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…

It is well known that many famous Burnside-type problems have positive solutions for PI-groups and PI-algebras. In the present article we also consider various Burnside-type problems for PI-groups and PI-representations of groups.

The show that the upper-left-corner problem and upper-right-corner problem for matrix groups with rational entries are undecidable. To reach this aim, we answer a question of Dixon from 1985 by proving the undecidability of the stabilizer…

Ulam asked whether every connected Lie group can be represented on a countable structure. This is known in the linear case. We establish it for the first family of non-linear groups, namely in the nilpotent case. Further context is…

It has been a longstanding problem whether every amenable operator algebra is isomorphic to a (necessarily nuclear) C*-algebra. In this note, we give a nonseparable counterexample. The existence of a separable counterexample remains an open…

Motivated by the Poisson Dixmier-Moeglin equivalence problem, a systematic study of commutative unitary rings equipped with a {\em biderivation}, namely a binary operation that is a derivation in each argument, is here begun, with an eye…