Lattices in amenable groups

Amenable Groups

Throughout we let Γ be a discrete group. For f : Γ → C and each s ∈ Γ we define the left translation action by (s.f)(t) = f(s−1t). Definition 1.1. A group Γ is amenable is there exists a state μ on l∞(Γ) which is invariant under the left translation action: for all s ∈ Γ and f ∈ l∞(Γ), μ(s.f) = μ(f). Example 1.2. Finite groups are amenable: take the state which sends χ{s} to 1 |Γ| for each s ∈ ...

Some extremely amenable groups

A topological group G is extremely amenable if every continuous action of G on a compact space has a fixed point. Using the concentration of measure techniques developed by Gromov and Milman, we prove that the group of automorphisms of a Lebesgue space with a non-atomic measure is extremely amenable with the weak topology but not with the uniform one. Strengthening a de la Harpe’s result, we sh...

Are Unitarizable Groups Amenable?

We give a new formulation of some of our recent results on the following problem: if all uniformly bounded representations on a discrete group G are similar to unitary ones, is the group amenable? In §5, we give a new proof of Haagerup's theorem that, on non-commutative free groups, there are Herz-Schur multipliers that are not coefficients of uniformly bounded representations. We actually prov...

Weakly Amenable Groups

In the present paper we construct the first examples of finitely generated non–amenable groups whose left regular representations are not uniformly isolated from the trivial representation.

Ergodic Theorems on Amenable Groups