Texas A&M University, Department of Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 23rd of February 2005, 3:00-3:50

Groups and Dynamics Seminar

(joint session with Mathematical Physics and Harmonic Analysis Seminar)


Iterated monodromy groups, Schreier graphs and limit spaces

Volodymyr Nekrashevych of International University Bremen, Germany

Iterated monodromy groups are naturally associated to (branched) self-coverings of topological spaces (for instance, to the rational functions acting on the Riemann sphere). We will show how iterated monodromy groups encode information about the dynamics of the self-covering. In particular, in many cases the Julia set of the self-covering can be reconstructed from the associated iterated monodromy group. This is done using the notion of a limit space of a group acting on a rooted tree. The limit space is approximated by Schreier graphs of the group and usually has a fractal shape. We will give different examples of iterated monodromy groups and their limit spaces.