| LIE GROUPS, REPRESENTATIONS AND DISCRETE MATH | |
| Topic: | Uniform Kazhdan Groups |
| Speaker: | Denis Osin |
| Affiliation: | City College, New York |
| Date: | Wednesday, November 30 |
| Time/Room: | 10:00am - 12:00pm/S-101 |
For a discrete group G and a finite subset X of G, let K(G, X) denote the Kazhdan constant of G associated to X. We define the uniform Kazhdan constant of G by
K(G) = min { K(G,X) | X is finite and generates G }.
Obviously K(G)>0 for any finite group G. On the other hand, K(G)=0 for many infinite Kazhdan groups G and, moreover, the question of the existence of an infinite group with non--zero uniform Kazhdan constant was open until now. The main goal of this talk is to provide the affirmative answer. This is a joint work with Dmitry Sonkin.