Related papers: A CAT(0) alternative for amenable groups and a Kaz…

We show that Thompson's group $F$ has a topological action on a compact metric space that is proximal and has no fixed points.

We study those groups that act properly discontinuously, cocompactly, and isometrically on CAT(0) spaces with isolated flats and the Relative Fellow Traveller Property. The groups in question include word hyperbolic CAT(0) groups as well as…

We introduce the notion of graphical discreteness to group theory. A finitely generated group is graphically discrete if whenever it acts geometrically on a locally finite graph, the automorphism group of the graph is compact-by-discrete.…

Let $K$ be a locally compact field of characteristic 0. Let $G$ be a linear algebraic group defined over $K$, acting algebraically on an algebraic variety $V$. We prove that the action of $G(K)$ (the group of $K$-rational points of $G$) on…

We study isometric actions of Steinberg groups on Hadamard manifolds. We prove some rigidity properties related to these actions. In Particular we show that every isometric action of $St_n(F_p\langle t_1,\ldots ,t_k \rangle)$ on Hadamard…

The goal of this article is to study results and examples concerning finitely presented covers of finitely generated amenable groups. We collect examples of groups $G$ with the following properties: (i) $G$ is finitely generated, (ii) $G$…

This paper is about geometric and topological properties of a proper CAT(0) space $X$ which is cocompact - i.e. which has a compact generating domain with respect to the full isometry group. It is shown that geodesic segments in $X$ can…

We specify exactly which groups can act geometrically on CAT(0) spaces whose visual boundary is homeomorphic to either a circle or a suspension of a Cantor set.

We exhibit a variety of groups that act properly and even cocompactly on median graphs (a.k.a. one-skeletons of CAT(0) cube complexes), with quasi-isometric groups that do not admit any proper action on a median graph. This answes a…

We construct new families of quasimorphisms on many groups acting on CAT(0) cube complexes. These quasimorphisms have a uniformly bounded defect of 12, and they "see" all elements that act hyperbolically on the cube complex. We deduce that…

A topological group $G$ is B-amenable if and only if every continuous affine action of $G$ on a bounded convex subset of a locally convex space has an approximate fixed point. Similar results hold more generally for slightly uniformly…

This thesis is dedicated to random walks on spaces with non-positive curvature. In particular, we study the case of group actions on CAT(0) spaces that admit contracting elements, that is, whose properties mimic those of loxodromic…

In this paper, we study several finite approximation properties of topological full groups of group actions on the Cantor set such that free points are dense. Firstly, we establish that for such a distal action $\alpha$ of a countable…

In this paper, we present a geometric condition for a family of CAT(0) spaces, which ensures that the Izeki-Nayatani invariants of spaces in the family are uniformly bounded from above by a constant strictly less than 1. Each element of…

We prove that, under certain mild conditions, every cocompact CAT(0) space is almost geodesically complete.

If $G$ is a finite $\ell$-group acting on an affine space $\mathbb{A}^n$ over a finite field $K$ of cardinality prime to $\ell$, Serre has shown that there exists a rational fixed point. We generalize this to the case where $K$ is a…

We construct a finitely presented group with property (T) which can not act on on reasonable spaces. Such group is constructed using an generalization of Hall embedding theorem, where property (T) is added at the expense of weakening the…

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 first give simplified and corrected accounts of some results in \cite{PiRCP} on compactifications of pseudofinite groups. For instance, we use a classical theorem of Turing \cite{Turing} to give a simplified proof that any definable…

Our purpose is to study in the setting of locally compact groupoids the analogues of the well-known equivalent definitions of exactness for discrete groups. Our best results are obtained for a class of \'etale groupoids that we call inner…