Geometric Group Theory
20-24 June 2011
Main Speakers:
Workshop
The Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research
University of Bristol, United Kingdom
Organized by Talia Fernós, Graham Niblo and Piotr Nowak
Geometric group theory has become a central area of research in Pure Mathematics with research groups across Europe and the Americas. The ideas started in 1968 with Mostow’s rigidity theorem (in the co-compact case) and the work of Wolf and Milnor on growth of groups. The impetus came in 1981 with Gromov’s proof of his polynomial growth theorem, in which virtually nilpotent groups were characterized in terms of their large-scale geometry, namely polynomial volume growth. Since it's inception, geometric group theory has developed into a separate branch of geometry with deep links to other parts of mathematics. In the last 15 years it has seen a fruitful interaction with non-commutative geometry and index theory. The use of large-scale geometric methods led to spectacular progress in the Baum-Connes-type conjectures. This in particular implies the Novikov conjecture for many new classes of groups and has applications to the positive scalar curvature problem, the Gromov-Lawson-Rosenberg conjecture and Gromov’s zero-in-the-spectrum conjecture.
For this workshop we plan a particular emphasis on the interaction between geometric group theory and non-commutative geometry, in particular focusing on approximation properties including amenability, the Haagerup property, property A (group C*-exactness) and their connections to homology and cohomology theories of groups.
Universität Münster
University of Southampton
University of Oxford
University of Oxford
Rutgers University
University of Hawaii
Pennsylvania State University
Université de Neuchâtel
Vanderbilt University
Université Paris 7
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