Related papers: Compact presentability of tree almost automorphism…

We give simple examples of Kazhdan groups with infinite outer automorphism groups. This answers a question of Paulin, independently answered by Ollivier and Wise by completely different methods. As arithmetic lattices in (non-semisimple)…

We prove a purely topological characterization of the Moufang property for disconnected compact polygons in terms of convergence groups. As a consequence, we recover the fact that a locally finite thick affine building of rank 3 is a…

Let K >= 1 be a parameter. A K-approximate group is a finite set A in a (local) group which contains the identity, is symmetric, and such that A^2 is covered by K left translates of A. The main result of this paper is a qualitative…

We exhibit a new presentation of the (equilateral) Von Dyck groups $D(2,3,n), \ n\ge 3$, in terms of two generators of order $n$ satisfying three relations, one of which is Artin's braid relation. By dropping the relation which fixes the…

Subgroups of direct products of finitely many finitely generated free groups form a natural class that plays an important role in geometric group theory. Its members include fundamental examples, such as the Stallings-Bieri groups. This…

We introduce the notion of the $k$-closure of a group of automorphisms of a locally finite tree, and give several examples of the construction. We show that the $k$-closure satisfies a new property of automorphism groups of trees that…

We construct p.m.p. group actions that are not local-global limits of sequences of finite graphs. Moreover, they do not weakly contain any sequence of finite labeled graphs. Our methods are based on the study of almost automorphisms of…

We prove an accessibility theorem for finite-index splittings of groups. Given a finitely presented group G there is a number n(G) such that, for every reduced locally finite G-tree T with finitely generated stabilizers, T/G has at most…

Given a finitely generated linear group $G$ over $\mathbb{Q}$, we construct a simple group $\Gamma$ that has the same finiteness properties as $G$ and admits $G$ as a quasi-retract. As an application, we construct a simple group of type…

We introduce "braided" versions of self-similar groups and R\"over--Nekrashevych groups, and study their finiteness properties. This generalizes work of Aroca and Cumplido, and the first author and Wu, who considered the case when the…

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…

Let X be a compact Kaehler manifold of complex dimension n. Let G be a connected solvable subgroup of the automorphism group Aut(X), and let N(G) be the normal subgroup of G of elements of null entropy. One of the goals of this paper is to…

We prove that the tree almost automorphism groups admit exactly three commensurability classes of closed commensurated subgroups. Our proof utilizes an independently interesting characterization of subgroups of the tree almost automorphism…

We establish three independent results on groups acting on trees. The first implies that a compactly generated locally compact group which acts continuously on a locally finite tree with nilpotent local action and no global fixed point is…

We prove analogues for Cartan geometries of Gromov's major theorems on automorphisms of rigid geometric structures. The starting point is a Frobenius theorem, which says that infinitesimal automorphisms of sufficiently high order integrate…

A topological group G is h-complete if every continuous homomorphic image of G is (Raikov-)complete; we say that G is hereditarily h-complete if every closed subgroup of G is h-complete. In this paper, we establish open-map properties of…

This article is an expanded version of the talks given by the authors at the Arbeitsgemeinschaft "Totally Disconnected Groups", held at Oberwolfach in October 2014. We recall the basic theory of automorphisms of trees and Tits' simplicity…

We show that many countable groups acting on trees, including free products of infinite countable groups and surface groups, are isomorphic to dense subgroups of isometry groups of bounded Urysohn spaces. This extends previous results of…

We extend Edmonds' Branching Theorem to locally finite infinite digraphs. As examples of Oxley or Aharoni and Thomassen show, this cannot be done using ordinary arborescences, whose underlying graphs are trees. Instead we introduce the…

Hougthon's groups H_n is a family of groups where each H_n consists of `translations at infinity' on n rays of discrete points emanating from the origin on the plane. Brown shows H_n has type FP_n-1 but not FP_n by constructing infinite…