Related papers: On Relative Property (T) and Haagerup's Property

A topological group $G$ is extremely amenable if every continuous action of $G$ on a compact space has a fixed point. Using the concentration of measure techniques developed by Gromov and Milman, we prove that the group of automorphisms of…

We prove several cases of Zimmer's conjecture for actions of higher-rank cocompact lattices on low dimensional manifolds. For example, if $\Gamma$ is a cocompact lattice in $\mathrm{Sl}(n, \mathbb R)$, $M$ is a compact manifold, and…

We prove that there exist finitely presented, residually finite groups that are profinitely rigid in the class of all finitely presented groups but not in the class of all finitely generated groups. These groups are of the form $\Gamma…

Let $\Gamma$ denote a distance-regular graph with diameter $D \ge 3$. Assume $\Gamma$ has classical parameters $(D,b,\alpha,\beta)$ with $b < -1$. Let $X$ denote the vertex set of $\Gamma$ and let $A \in MX$ denote the adjacency matrix of…

Let $\Gamma$ be a group of type rotating automorphisms of a building $\cB$ of type $\widetilde A_2$, and suppose that $\Gamma$ acts freely and transitively on the vertex set of $\cB$. The apartments of $\cB$ are tiled by triangles, labelled…

We show that every countable group with infinite FC-center has the Schmidt property, i.e., admits a free, ergodic, measure-preserving action on a standard probability space such that the full group of the associated orbit equivalence…

We investigate Matui-Sato's notion of property (SI) for C*-dynamics, this time with a focus on actions of possibly non-amenable groups. The main result is a generalization of earlier work: For any countable group $\Gamma$ and any…

We say a group $G$ has property $R_\infty$ if the number $R(\varphi)$ of twisted conjugacy classes is infinite for every automorphism $\varphi$ of $G$. For such groups, the $R_\infty$-nilpotency degree is the least integer $c$ such that…

Given an action $\alpha$ of a discrete group $G$ on a unital C*-algebra $A$, we introduce a natural concept of $\alpha$-negative definiteness for functions from $G$ to $A$, and examine some of the first consequences of such a notion. In…

A group $G$ has the $R_{\infty}$--property if the number $R(\varphi)$ of twisted conjugacy classes is infinite for any automorphism $\varphi$ of $G$. For such a group $G$, the $R_{\infty}$--nilpotency index is the least integer $c$ such…

We prove that in a countable theory T fully stable over a predicate P, any complete set A has the existence property. This means that A can be extended to a model of T without changing the P-part. In particular, T has the Gaifman property:…

We prove that $\textbf{SL}_3(\mathbb{Z}[t])$ has a finite index subgroup $\Gamma$ such that $H^2(\Gamma; \mathbb{Q})$ is infinite dimensional. The proof uses the geometry of the Euclidean building for $\textbf{SL}_3(\mathbb{Q}((t^{-1})))$.

Suppose $N$ is a diffuse, property T von Neumann algebra and X is an arbitrary finite generating set of selfadjoint elements for N. By using rigidity/deformation arguments applied to representations of N in full matrix algebras, we deduce…

We prove that every virtually free group $G$ has property (LR) of Long and Reid: each finitely generated subgroup of $G$ is a retract of a finite index subgroup. The main ingredient in the proof is a new embedding result stating that every…

Let $F$ be either a free nilpotent group of a given class and of finite rank or a free solvable group of a certain derived length and of finite rank. We show precisely which ones have the $R_{\infty}$ property. Finally, we also show that…

Consider a lattice $\Gamma$ in a group $G = SL_2(\R), SO(1,n), SU(1,n)$, $SL_2(\Q_p)$. We discuss actions of $\Gamma$ by affine isometric transformations of Hilbert spaces. We show that for irreducible affine isometric action of $G$ its…

We investigate various characterizations of the Haagerup property (H) for a second countable locally compact group G, in terms of orthogonal representations of G on non-commutative Lp spaces. We introduce a variant (H_Lp) for orthogonal…

Let $Q_m$ be the HNN extension of $\Z/m \times \Z/m$ where the stable letter conjugates the first factor to the second. We explore small presentations of the groups $\Gamma_{m,n}=Q_m \ast Q_n$. We show that for certain choices of (m,n), for…

We propose to study a natural version of Connes' Rigidity Conjecture that involves property (T) groups with infinite center. Utilizing techniques at the intersection of von Neumann algebras and geometric group theory, we establish several…

Consider an inclusion of diffuse von Neumann algebras A c M . We say that A c M has the absorbing amenability property if for any diffuse subalgebra B c A and any amenable intermediate algebra B c D c M we have that D is contained in A. We…