Geometry Groups And Dynamics

Geometric group theory refers to the study of discrete groups using tools from topology, geometry, dynamics and analysis. The field is evolving very rapidly and the present volume provides an introduction to and overview of various topics which have played critical roles in this evolution. The book contains lecture notes from courses given at the Park City Math Institute on Geometric Group Theory. The institute consists of a set of intensive short courses offered by leaders in the field, designed to introduce students to exciting, current research in mathematics. These lectures do not duplicate standard courses available elsewhere. The courses begin at an introductory level suitable for graduate students and lead up to currently active topics of research. The articles in this volume include introductions to CAT(0) cube complexes and groups, to modern small cancellation theory, to isometry groups of general CAT(0) spaces, and a discussion of nilpotent genus in the context of mapping class groups and CAT(0) groups. One course surveys quasi-isometric rigidity, others contain an exploration of the geometry of Outer space, of actions of arithmetic groups, lectures on lattices and locally symmetric spaces, on marked length spectra and on expander graphs, Property tau and approximate groups. This book is a valuable resource for graduate students and researchers interested in geometric group theory. Titles in this series are co-published with the Institute for Advanced Study/Park City Mathematics Institute. Members of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) receive a 20% discount from list price.

Alexander Reznikov (1960-2003) was a brilliant and highly original mathematician. This book presents 18 articles by prominent mathematicians and is dedicated to his memory. In addition it contains an influential, so far unpublished manuscript by Reznikov of book length. The book further provides an extensive survey on Kleinian groups in higher dimensions and some articles centering on Reznikov as a person.

This volume is based on lectures given at the highly successful three-week Summer School on Geometry, Topology and Dynamics of Character Varieties held at the National University of Singapore's Institute for Mathematical Sciences in July 2010. Aimed at graduate students in the early stages of research, the edited and refereed articles comprise an excellent introduction to the subject of the program, much of which is otherwise available only in specialized texts. Topics include hyperbolic structures on surfaces and their degenerations, applications of ping-pong lemmas in various contexts, introductions to Lorenzian and complex hyperbolic geometry, and representation varieties of surface groups into PSL(2, ℝ) and other semi-simple Lie groups. This volume will serve as a useful portal to students and researchers in a vibrant and multi-faceted area of mathematics. Sample Chapter(s) Foreword (72 KB) Chapter 1: An Invitation to Elementary Hyperbolic Geometry (708 KB) Contents:An Invitation to Elementary Hyperbolic Geometry (Ying Zhang)Hyperbolic Structures on Surfaces (Javier Aramayona)Degenerations of Hyperbolic Structures on Surfaces (Christopher J Leininger)Ping-Pong Lemmas with Applications to Geometry and Topology (Thomas Koberda)Creating Software for Visualizing Kleinian Groups (Yasushi Yamashita)Traces in Complex Hyperbolic Geometry (John R Parker)Lorentzian Geometry (Todd A Drumm)Connected Components of PGL(2,R)-Representation Spaces of Non-Orientable Surfaces (Frédéric Palesi)Rigidity and Flexibility of Surface Groups in Semisimple Lie Groups (Inkang Kim)Abelian and Non-Abelian Cohomology (Eugene Z Xia) Readership: Graduate students, researchers and professors in mathematical areas such as low-dimensional topology, dynamical systems and hyperbolic geometry. Keywords:Character Varieties;Representation Spaces;Mapping Class Groups;Hyperbolic Geometry;Kleinian GroupsKey Features:Accessible introduction to structures on surfaces, measured foliations and the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller spaceHow to write a python program to draw limit sets and other geometric objects associated with simple Kleinian groupsTwo excellent expository articles by students who attended the program

This book presents the foundations of the theory of groups and semigroups acting isometrically on Gromov hyperbolic metric spaces. Particular emphasis is paid to the geometry of their limit sets and on behavior not found in the proper setting. The authors provide a number of examples of groups which exhibit a wide range of phenomena not to be found in the finite-dimensional theory. The book contains both introductory material to help beginners as well as new research results, and closes with a list of attractive unsolved problems.

The study of group actions is more than a hundred years old but remains to this day a vibrant and widely studied topic in a variety of mathematic fields. A central development in the last fifty years is the phenomenon of rigidity, whereby one can classify actions of certain groups, such as lattices in semi-simple Lie groups. This provides a way to classify all possible symmetries of important spaces and all spaces admitting given symmetries. Paradigmatic results can be found in the seminal work of George Mostow, Gergory Margulis, and Robert J. Zimmer, among others. The papers in Geometry, Rigidity, and Group Actions explore the role of group actions and rigidity in several areas of mathematics, including ergodic theory, dynamics, geometry, topology, and the algebraic properties of representation varieties. In some cases, the dynamics of the possible group actions are the principal focus of inquiry. In other cases, the dynamics of group actions are a tool for proving theorems about algebra, geometry, or topology. This volume contains surveys of some of the main directions in the field, as well as research articles on topics of current interest.

This 1985 book is an introduction to certain central ideas in group theory and geometry. Professor Lyndon emphasises and exploits the well-known connections between the two subjects and leads the reader to the frontiers of current research at the time of publication.

This volume contains articles based on talks given at the Robert Brooks Memorial Conference on Geometry and Spectral Theory and the Workshop on Groups, Geometry and Dynamics held at Technion - the Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa). Robert Brooks' (1952-2002) broad range of mathematical interests is represented in the volume, which is devoted to various aspects of global analysis, spectral theory, the theory of Riemann surfaces, Riemannian and discrete geometry, and number theory. A survey of Brooks' work has been written by his close colleague, Peter Buser. Also included in the volume are articles on analytic topics, such as Szegos theorem, and on geometric topics, such as isoperimetric inequalities and symmetries of manifolds. The book is suitable for graduate students and researchers interested in various aspects of geometry and global analysis.