Related papers: Geometric group theory and arithmetic diameter

This paper describes a new link between combinatorial number theory and geometry. The main result states that A is a finite set of relatively prime positive integers if and only if A = (K-K) \cap N, where K is a compact set of real numbers…

Let $(X,d)$ be a metric space. A set $S\subseteq X$ is said to be a $k$-metric generator for $X$ if and only if for any pair of different points $u,v\in X$, there exist at least $k$ points $w_1,w_2, \ldots w_k\in S$ such that $d(u,w_i)\ne…

Generalizing the case of an infinite discrete metric space of finite diameter, we say that a discrete metric space $(X,d)$ is a Kuiper space, if the group of invertible elements of its uniform Roe algebra is norm-contractible. Various…

Let G be a finitely generated group with a given word metric. The asymptotic density of elements in G that have a particular property P is defined to be the limit, as r goes to infinity, of the proportion of elements in the ball of radius r…

Let S=Sym(\Omega) be the group of all permutations of an infinite set \Omega. Extending an argument of Macpherson and Neumann, it is shown that if U is a generating set for S as a group, respectively as a monoid, then there exists a…

We present two conjectures concerning the diameter of a direct power of a finite group. The first conjecture states that the diameter of G^n with respect to any generating set is at most n(|G|-rank(G)); and the second one states that there…

In this paper we introduce a homotopy theoretic technique for proving that the $K$-theoretic assembly map is an equivalence. It is an extension of the methods used to prove split injectivity of the assembly and applies to any geometrically…

We consider the unitary group $\U$ of complex, separable, infinite-dimensional Hilbert space as a discrete group. It is proved that, whenever $\U$ acts by isometries on a metric space, every orbit is bounded. Equivalently, $\U$ is not the…

The group $\text{Diff}(\mathcal{M})$ of diffeomorphisms of a closed manifold $\mathcal{M}$ is naturally equipped with various right-invariant Sobolev norms $W^{s,p}$. Recent work showed that for sufficiently weak norms, the geodesic…

This book offers to study locally compact groups from the point of view of appropriate metrics that can be defined on them, in other words to study "Infinite groups as geometric objects", as Gromov writes it in the title of a famous…

We prove that if L is a finite simple group of Lie type and A a symmetric set of generators of L, then A grows i.e |AAA| > |A|^(1+epsilon) where epsilon depends only on the Lie rank of L, or AAA=L. This implies that for a family of simple…

Let $R$ be a commutative Noetherian ring of dimension $d$. First, we define the "geometric subring" $A$ of a polynomial ring $R[T]$ of dimension $d+1$ (the definition of geometric subring is more general, see (1.2)). Then we prove that…

The dead-end depth of an element g of a group with finite generating set A is the distance from g to the complement of the radius d(1,g) closed ball, in the word metric d associated to A. We exhibit a finitely presented group K with two…

For every finite generating set on the integer Heisenberg group H(Z), Pansu showed that the word metric has the large-scale structure of a Carnot-Caratheodory Finsler metric on the real Heisenberg group H(R). We study the properties of…

Let $R$ be a commutative ring and $\Gamma$ be an infinite discrete group. The algebraic $K$-theory of the group ring $R[\Gamma]$ is an important object of computation in geometric topology and number theory. When the group ring is…

A subset of the Hamming cube over $n$-letter alphabet is said to be $d$-maximal if its diameter is $d$, and adding any point increases the diameter. Our main result shows that each $d$-maximal set is either of size at most $(n+o(n))^d$ or…

These are notes from talks given at ICMS, Edinburgh, 4/2007 ("Geometry and Algorithms workshop") and at Bernoulli Center, Lausanne 5/2007 ("Limits of graphs in group theory and computer science"). We survey the following type of dichotomies…

Let G be a finite group with a generating set A. By the (symmetric) diameter of G with respect to A we mean the maximum over g in G of the length of the shortest word in (A union A inverse)A expressing g.By the (symmetric) diameter of G we…

Given a second-countable, Hausdorff, \'etale, amenable groupoid G with compact unit space, we show that an element a in C*(G) is invertible if and only if \lambda_x(a) is invertible for every x in the unit space of G, where \lambda_x refers…

A metric measure space is a metric space with a Borel measure. In Gromov's theory of metric measure spaces, there are important invariants called the partial diameter and the observable diameter. We obtain the result that the partial…