The zero divisor conjecture is sufficient to prove for certain class of finitely presented groups where the relations are given by a pairing of generators. We associate Mealy automata to such pairings, and prove that the zero divisor conjecture holds for groups corresponding to invertible automata with three states. In particular, there cannot be zero divisors of support three corresponding to invertible pairings.

Liouville property of actions of discrete groups can be reformulated in terms of existence of co-Følner sets. Since every action of amenable group is Liouville, the property can be used for proving non-amenability. There are many groups that are defined by strongly transitive actions. In some cases amenability of such groups is an open problem. We define n n -Liouville property of action to be Liouville property of point-wise action of the group on the sets of cardinality n n . We reformulate n n -Liouville property in terms of additive combinatorics and prove it for n = 1 , 2 n=1, 2 . The case n ≥ 3 n\geq 3 remains open.

We provide a quantitative formulation of the equivalence between hyperlinearity and soficity for amenable groups, showing that every hyperlinear approximation to such a group is essentially produced from a sofic approximation. This translates to a quantitative relationship between Hilbert-Schmidt and permutation stability for approximate homomorphisms which appropriately separate the elements of the group.

We obtain results connecting the uniform Liuoville property of group actions on the classes of a countable Borel equivalence relation with amenability of this equivalence relation. We also discuss extensions of Kesten's theorem to certain amenable topological groups and prove a version of this theorem for amenable groups with the SIN property. Furthermore, we discuss potential implications of generalizations of Kesten's theorem for concentration inequalities on the inverted orbits of random walks on the classes of an amenable equivalence relation.

This paper studies certain aspects of harmonic analysis on nonabelian free groups. We focus on the concept of a positive definite function on the free group and our primary goal is to understand how such functions can be extended from balls of finite radius to the entire group. Previous work showed that such extensions always exist and we study the problem of simultaneous extension of multiple positive definite functions. More specifically, we define a concept of ‘relative energy’ which measures the proximity between a pair of positive definite functions, and show that a pair of positive definite functions on a finite ball can be extended to the entire group without increasing their relative energy. The proof is analytic, involving differentiation of noncommutative Szegö parameters.

There are several natural families of groups acting on rooted trees for which every member is known to be amenable. It is, however, unclear what the elementary amenable members of these families look like. Towards clarifying this situation, we here study elementary amenable bounded automata groups. We are able to isolate the elementary amenable bounded automata groups in three natural subclasses of bounded automata groups. In particular, we show that iterated monodromy groups of post-critically finite polynomials are either virtually abelian or not elementary amenable.

We study skew-amenable topological groups, i.e., those admitting a left-invariant mean on the space of bounded real-valued functions left-uniformly continuous in the sense of Bourbaki. We prove characterizations of skew-amenability for topological groups of isometries and automorphisms, clarify the connection with extensive amenability of group actions, establish a Følner-type characterization, and discuss closure properties of the class of skew-amenable topological groups. Moreover, we isolate a dynamical sufficient condition for skew-amenability and provide several concrete variations of this criterion in the context of transformation groups. These results are then used to decide skew-amenability for a number of examples of topological groups built from or related to Thompson's group F and Monod's group of piecewise projective homeomorphisms of the real line.

We give new examples of simple finitely generated groups arising from actions of free abelian groups on the Cantor sets. As particular examples, we discuss groups of interval exchange transformations, and a group naturally associatedwith the Penrose tilings. Many groups in this class are amenable.

This paper studies certain aspects of harmonic analysis on nonabelian free groups. We focus on the concept of a positive definite function on the free group and our primary goal is to understand how such functions can be extended from balls of finite radius to the entire group. Previous work showed that such extensions always exist and we study the problem of simultaneous extension of multiple positive definite functions. More specifically, we define a concept of 'relative energy' which measures the proximity between a pair of positive definite functions, and show that a pair of positive definite functions on a finite ball can be extended to the entire group without increasing their relative energy. The proof is analytic, involving differentiation of noncommutative Szego parameters.

In this paper we formulate a conjecture which is a strengthening of an extension theorem of Bakonyi and Timotin for positive definite functions on the free group on two generators. We prove that this conjecture implies Connes' embedding conjecture.

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

This is a paper with two aims. First, we show that the map from $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ to itself defined by exponentiation $x\to m^x$ has few $3$-cycles -- that is to say, the number of cycles of length three is $o(p)$. This improves on previous bounds. Our second objective is to contribute to an ongoing discussion on how to find a non-sofic group. In particular, we show that, if the Higman group were sofic, there would be a map from $\mathbb{Z}/p\mathbb{Z}$ to itself, locally like an exponential map, yet satisfying a recurrence property.

In a recent paper Uffe Haagerup and Kristian Knudsen Olesen show that for Richard Thompson's group $T$, if there exists a finite set $H$ which can be decomposed as disjoint union of sets $H_1$ and $H_2$ with $\sum_{g\in H_1}\pi(g)=\sum_{h\in H_2}\pi(h)$ and such that the closed ideal generated by $\sum_{g\in H_1}\lambda(g)-\sum_{h\in H_2}\lambda(h)$ coincides with $C^*_\lambda(T)$, then the Richard Thompson group $F$ is not amenable. In particular, if $C_{\lambda}^*(T)$ is simple then $F$ is not amenable. Here we prove the converse, namely, if $F$ is not amenable then we can find two sets $H_1$ and $H_2$ with the above properties. The only currently available tool for proving simplicity of group $C^*$-algebra is Power's condition. We show that it fails for $C_{\lambda}^*(T)$ and present an apparent weakening of that condition which could potentially be used for various new groups $H$ to show the simplicity of $C_{\lambda}^*(H)$. While we use our weakening in the proof of the first result, we also show that the new condition is still too strong to be used to show the simplicity of $C_{\lambda}^*(T)$. Along the way, we give a new application of the Ping-Pong Lemma to find free groups as subgroups in groups of homeomorphisms of the circle generated by elements with rational rotation number.

We consider groups of automorphisms of locally finite trees, and give conditions on its subgroups that imply that they are not elementary amenable. This covers all known examples of groups that are not elementary amenable and act on the trees: groups of intermediate growths and Basilica group, by giving a more straightforward proof. Moreover, we deduce that all finitely generated branch groups are not elementary amenable, which was conjectured by Grigorchuk.

Extensive amenability is a property of group actions which has recently been used as a tool to prove amenability of groups. We study this property and prove that it is preserved under a very general construction of semidirect products. As an application, we establish the amenability of all subgroups of the group $\text{IET}$ of interval exchange transformations that have angular components of rational rank less than or equal to two. In addition, we obtain a reformulation of extensive amenability in terms of inverted orbits and use it to present a purely probabilistic proof that recurrent actions are extensively amenable. Finally, we study the triviality of the Poisson boundary for random walks on $\text{IET}$ and show that there are subgroups $G<\text{IET}$ admitting no finitely supported measure with trivial boundary.

We provide equivalent conditions for Liouville property of actions of groups. As an application, we show that there is a Liouville measure for the action of the Thompson group $F$ on dyadic rationals. This result should be compared with a recent result of Kaimanovich, where he shows that the action of the Thompson group $F$ on dyadic rationals is not Liouville for all finitely supported measures. As another application we show that there is a Liouville measure for lamplighter actions. This gives more examples of non-amenable Liouville actions.

We show that the generation problem in Thompson group $F$ is decidable, i.e., there is an algorithm which decides if a finite set of elements of $F$ generates the whole $F$. The algorithm makes use of the Stallings $2$-core of subgroups of $F$, which can be defined in an analogue way to the Stallings core of subgroups of a finitely generated free group. Further study of the Stallings $2$-core of subgroups of $F$ provides a solution to another algorithmic problem in $F$. Namely, given a finitely generated subgroup $H$ of $F$, it is decidable if $H$ acts transitively on the set of finite dyadic fractions $\mathcal D$. Other applications of the study include the construction of new maximal subgroups of $F$ of infinite index, among which, a maximal subgroup of infinite index which acts transitively on the set $\mathcal D$ and the construction of an elementary amenable subgroup of $F$ which is maximal in a normal subgroup of $F$.

We show that the amenability of a group acting by homeomorphisms can be deduced from a certain local property of the action and recurrency of the orbital Schreier graphs. This applies to a wide class of groups, the amenability of which was an open problem, as well as unifies many known examples to one general proof. In particular, this includes Grigorchuk’s group, Basilica group, group associated to Fibonacci tiling, the topological full groups of Cantor minimal systems, groups acting on rooted trees by bounded automorphisms, groups generated by finite automata of linear activity growth, and groups naturally appearing in holomorphic dynamics.

Motivated by the Benjamini-Schramm non-unicity of percolation conjecture we study the following question. For a given finitely generated non-amenable group $\Gamma$, does there exist a generating set $S$ such that the Cayley graph $(\Gamma,S)$, without loops and multiple edges, has non-unique percolation, i.e., $p_c(\Gamma,S)