Texas A&M University, Department of Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 25th of October 2006, 3:00-3:50

Groups and Dynamics Seminar


Hausdorff dimension in a family of self-similar groups

Zoran Šunić of Texas A&M University

Finitely constrained groups are, in the theory of groups acting on regular rooted trees, analogs of subshifts of finite type in symbolic dynamics. In 2005 Grigorchuk showed that spherically transitive, finitely constrained groups are closed, self-similar, regular branch groups. We provide full characterization of spherically transitive, finitely constrained groups in terms of the branching property. Namely, a group of tree automorphisms is spherically transitive, finitely constrained group if and only if it is the closure of a self-similar, regular branch group, branching over a congruence subgroup. We then provide a formula for the Hausdorff dimension of finitely constrained groups and show that infinite, finitely constrained groups of p-adic automorphisms always have positive and rational Hausdorff dimension. We provide concrete examples (not using random methods) of topologically finitely generated self-similar groups of p-adic automorphisms whose Hausdorff dimension is arbitrarily close to 1.