arXiv subjects

Romain Tessera

Publications and source records attributed to Romain Tessera.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

Asymptotic dimension for covers with controlled growth

We prove various obstructions to the existence of regular maps (or coarse embeddings) between commonly studied spaces. For instance, there is no regular map (or coarse embedding) $\mathbb H^n\to\mathbb H^{n-1}\times Y$ for $n\geq 3$, or $(T_3)^n \to (T_3)^{n-1}\times Y$ whenever $Y$ is a bounded degree graph with subexponential growth, where $T_3$ is the $3$-regular tree. We also resolve a question of Benjamini-Schramm-Timár, proving that there is no regular map $\mathbb H^2 \to T_3 \times Y$ whenever $Y$ is a bounded degree graph with at most polynomial growth, and no quasi-isometric embedding whenever $Y$ has subexponential growth. Finally, we show that there is no regular map $F^n\to \mathbb Z\wr F^{n-1}$ where $F$ is the free group on two generators. To prove these results, we introduce and study generalizations of asymptotic dimension which allow unbounded covers with controlled growth. For bounded degree graphs, these invariants are monotone with respect to regular maps (hence coarse embeddings).

math.MG↗

arXiv2022

Coarse fixed point properties

We investigate fixed point properties for isometric actions of topological groups on a wide class of metric spaces, with a particular emphasis on Hilbert spaces. Instead of requiring the action to be continuous, we assume that it is ``controlled", i.e. compatible with respect to some natural left-invariant coarse structure. For locally compact groups, we prove that these coarse fixed point properties are equivalent to the usual ones, defined for continuous actions. We deduce generalisations of two results of Gromov originally stated for discrete groups. For Polish groups with bounded geometry (in the sense of Rosendal), we prove a version of Serre's theorem on the stability of coarse property FH under central extensions. As an application we prove that the group $\text{Homeo}^+_{\mathbb Z}(\mathbb R)$ has property FH. Finally, we characterise geometric property (T) for sequences of finite Cayley graphs in terms of coarse property FH of a certain group.

math.GR↗

arXiv2022

A note on morphisms to wreath products

Given a morphism $φ: G \to A \wr B$ from a finitely presented group $G$ to a wreath product $A \wr B$, we show that, if the image of $φ$ is a sufficiently large subgroup, then $\mathrm{ker}(φ)$ contains a non-abelian free subgroup and $φ$ factors through an acylindrically hyperbolic quotient of $G$. As direct applications, we classify the finitely presented subgroups in $A \wr B$ up to isomorphism and we deduce that a group having a wreath product $(\text{non-trivial}) \wr (\text{infinite})$ as a quotient must be SQ-universal (extending theorems of Baumslag and Cornulier-Kar). Finally, we exploit our theorem in order to describe the structure of the automorphism groups of several families of wreath products, highlighting an interesting connection with the Kaplansky conjecture on units in group rings.

math.GR↗

arXiv2022

Poincaré profiles of Lie groups and a coarse geometric dichotomy

Poincaré profiles are a family of analytically defined coarse invariants, which can be used as obstructions to the existence of coarse embeddings between metric spaces. In this paper we calculate the Poincaré profiles of all connected unimodular Lie groups, Baumslag-Solitar groups and Thurston geometries, demonstrating two substantially different types of behaviour. In the case of Lie groups, we obtain a dichotomy which extends both the dichotomy separating rank one and higher rank semisimple Lie groups and the dichotomy separating connected solvable unimodular Lie groups of polynomial and exponential growth. We provide equivalent algebraic, quasi-isometric and coarse geometric formulations of this dichotomy. Our results have many consequences for coarse embeddings, for instance we deduce that for groups of the form $N\times S$, where $N$ is a connected nilpotent Lie group, and $S$ is a simple Lie group of real rank 1, both the growth exponent of $N$, and the Ahlfors-regular conformal dimension of $S$ are non-decreasing under coarse embeddings. These results are new even in the quasi-isometric setting and give obstructions to quasi-isometric embeddings which in many cases are stronger than those previously obtained by Buyalo-Schroeder.

math.GR↗

arXiv2022

Twin-width VII: groups

Twin-width is a recently introduced graph parameter with applications in algorithmics, combinatorics, and finite model theory. For graphs of bounded degree, finiteness of twin-width is preserved by quasi-isometry. Thus, through Cayley graphs, it defines a group invariant. We prove that groups which are abelian, hyperbolic, ordered, solvable, or with polynomial growth, have finite twin-width. Twin-width can be characterised by excluding patterns in the self-action by product of the group elements. Based on this characterisation, we propose a strengthening called uniform twin-width, which is stable under constructions such as group extensions, direct products, and direct limits. The existence of finitely generated groups with infinite twin-width is not immediate. We construct one using a result of Osajda on embeddings of graphs into groups. This implies the existence of a class of finite graphs with unbounded twin-width but containing $2^{O(n)} \cdot n!$ graphs on vertex set $\{1,\dots,n\}$, settling a question asked in a previous work.

math.GR↗

arXiv2022

Quantitative measure equivalence between amenable groups

We initiate a quantitative study of measure equivalence (and orbit equivalence) between finitely generated groups, which extends the classical setting of $\mathrm L^p$ measure equivalence. In this paper, our main focus will be on amenable groups, for which we prove both rigidity and flexibility results. On the rigidity side, we prove a general monotonicity property satisfied by the isoperimetric profile, which implies in particular its invariance under $\mathrm L^1$ measure equivalence. This yields explicit "lower bounds" on how integrable a measure coupling between two amenable groups can be. This result also has an unexpected application to geometric group theory: the isoperimetric profile turns out to be monotonous under coarse embedding between amenable groups. This has various applications, among which the existence of an uncountable family of $3$-solvable groups which pairwise do not coarsely embed into one another. On the flexibility side, we construct explicit orbit equivalences between amenable groups with prescribed integrability conditions. Our main tool is a new notion of Følner tiling sequences. We show in a number of instances that the bounds derived from the isoperimetric profile are sharp up to a logarithmic factor. We also deduce from this study that two important quasi-isometry invariants are not preserved under $\mathrm L^1$ orbit equivalence: the asymptotic dimension and finite presentability.

math.GR↗

arXiv2022

Explicit universal minimal constants for polynomial growth of groups

Shalom and Tao showed that a polynomial upper bound on the size of a single, large enough ball in a Cayley graph implies that the underlying group has a nilpotent subgroup with index and degree of polynomial growth both bounded effectively. The third and fourth authors proved the optimal bound on the degree of polynomial growth of this subgroup, at the expense of making some other parts of the result ineffective. In the present paper we prove the optimal bound on the degree of polynomial growth without making any losses elsewhere. As a consequence, we show that there exist explicit positive numbers $\varepsilon_d$ such that in any group with growth at least a polynomial of degree $d$, the growth is at least $\varepsilon_dn^d$. We indicate some applications in probability; in particular, we show that the gap at $1$ for the critical probability for Bernoulli site percolation on a Cayley graph, recently proven to exist by Panagiotis and Severo, is at least $\exp\bigl\{-\exp\bigl\{17 \exp\{100 \cdot 8^{100}\}\bigr\}\bigr\}$.

math.GR↗

arXiv2021

Asymptotic geometry of lamplighters over one-ended groups

This article is dedicated to the asymptotic geometry of wreath products $F\wr H := \left( \bigoplus_H F \right) \rtimes H$ where $F$ is a finite group and $H$ a one-ended finitely presented group. Our main result is a complete classification of these groups up to quasi-isometry. More precisely, given two finite groups $F_1,F_2$ and two finitely presented one-ended groups $H_1,H_2$, we show that $F_1 \wr H_1$ and $F_2 \wr H_2$ are quasi-isometric if and only if either (i) $H_1,H_2$ are non-amenable quasi-isometric groups and $|F_1|,|F_2|$ have the same prime divisors, or (ii) $H_1,H_2$ are amenable, $|F_1|=k^{n_1}$ and $|F_2|=k^{n_2}$ for some $k,n_1,n_2 \geq 1$, and there exists a quasi-$(n_2/n_1)$-to-one quasi-isometry $H_1 \to H_2$. The article also contains algebraic information on groups quasi-isometric to such wreath products. This can be seen as far reaching extension of a celebrated work of Eskin-Fisher-Whyte who treated the case of $H=\mathbb{Z}$. Our approach is however fundamentally different, as it crucially exploits the assumption that $H$ is one-ended. Our central tool is a new geometric interpretation of lamplighter groups involving natural families of quasi-median spaces.

math.GR↗

arXiv2021

Measure-scaling quasi-isometries

A measure-scaling quasi-isometry between two connected graphs is a quasi-isometry that is quasi-$κ$-to-one in a natural sense for some $κ>0$. For non-amenable graphs, all quasi-isometries are quasi-$κ$-to-one for any $κ>0$, while for amenable ones there exists at most one possible such $κ$. For an amenable graph $X$, we show that the set of possible $κ$ forms a subgroup of $\mathbb{R}_{>0}$ that we call the (measure-)scaling group of $X$. This group is invariant under measure-scaling quasi-isometries. In the context of Cayley graphs, this implies for instance that two uniform lattices in a given locally compact group have same scaling groups. We compute the scaling group in a number of cases. For instance it is all of $\mathbb{R}_{>0}$ for lattices in Carnot groups, SOL or solvable Baumslag Solitar groups, but is a (strict) subgroup $\mathbb{Q}_{>0}$ for lamplighter groups over finitely presented amenable groups.

math.GR↗

arXiv2021

A finitary structure theorem for vertex-transitive graphs of polynomial growth

We prove a quantitative, finitary version of Trofimov's result that a connected, locally finite vertex-transitive graph G of polynomial growth admits a quotient with finite fibres on which the action of Aut(G) is virtually nilpotent with finite vertex stabilisers. We also present some applications. We show that a finite, connected vertex-transitive graph G of large diameter admits a quotient with fibres of small diameter on which the action of Aut(G) is virtually abelian with vertex stabilisers of bounded size. We also show that G has moderate growth in the sense of Diaconis and Saloff-Coste, which is known to imply that the mixing and relaxation times of the lazy random walk on G are quadratic in the diameter. These results extend results of Breuillard and the second author for finite Cayley graphs of large diameter. Finally, given a connected, locally finite vertex-transitive graph G exhibiting polynomial growth at a single, sufficiently large scale, we describe its growth at subsequent scales, extending a result of Tao and an earlier result of our own for Cayley graphs. In forthcoming work we will give further applications.

math.CO↗

arXiv2020

Residually free groups do not admit a uniform polynomial isoperimetric function

We show that there is no uniform polynomial isoperimetric function for finitely presented subgroups of direct products of free groups, by producing a sequence of subgroups $G_r\leq F_2^{(1)} \times \dots \times F_2^{(r)}$ of direct products of 2-generated free groups with Dehn functions bounded below by $n^{r}$. The groups $G_r$ are obtained from the examples of non-coabelian subdirect products of free groups constructed by Bridson, Howie, Miller and Short. As a consequence we obtain that residually free groups do not admit a uniform polynomial isoperimetric function.

math.GR↗

arXiv2019

Poincaré profiles of groups and spaces

We introduce a spectrum of monotone coarse invariants for metric measure spaces called Poincaré profiles. The two extremes of this spectrum determine the growth of the space, and the separation profile as defined by Benjamini--Schramm--Timár. In this paper we focus on properties of the Poincaré profiles of groups with polynomial growth, and of hyperbolic spaces, where we deduce a connection between these profiles and conformal dimension. As applications, we use these invariants to show the non-existence of coarse embeddings in a variety of examples.

math.GR↗

arXiv2019

On the Dehn functions of Kähler groups

We address the problem of which functions can arise as Dehn functions of Kähler groups. We explain why there are examples of Kähler groups with linear, quadratic, and exponential Dehn function. We then proceed to show that there is an example of a Kähler group which has Dehn function bounded below by a cubic function and above by $n^6$. As a consequence we obtain that for a compact Kähler manifold having non-positive holomorphic bisectional curvature does not imply having quadratic Dehn function.

math.GT↗

arXiv2019

Characterizing a vertex-transitive graph by a large ball

It is well-known that a complete Riemannian manifold M which is locally isometric to a symmetric space is covered by a symmetric space. Here we prove that a discrete version of this property (called local to global rigidity) holds for a large class of vertex-transitive graphs, including Cayley graphs of torsion-free lattices in simple Lie groups, and Cayley graph of torsion-free virtually nilpotent groups. By contrast, we exhibit various examples of Cayley graphs of finitely presented groups (e.g. SL(4,Z)) which fail to have this property, answering a question of Benjamini, Ellis, and Georgakopoulos. Answering a question of Cornulier, we also construct a continuum of non pairwise isometric large-scale simply connected locally finite vertex-transitive graphs. This question was motivated by the fact that large-scale simply connected Cayley graphs are precisely Cayley graphs of finitely presented groups and therefore have countably many isometric classes.

math.MG↗

arXiv2018

Properness of nilprogressions and the persistence of polynomial growth of given degree

We show that an arbitrary nilprogression can be approximated by a proper coset nilprogression in upper-triangular form. This can be thought of as a nilpotent version of the Freiman-Bilu result that a generalised arithmetic progression can be efficiently contained in a proper generalised arithmetic progression, and indeed an important ingredient in the proof is a Lie-algebra version of the geometry-of-numbers argument at the centre of that result. We also present some applications. We verify a conjecture of Benjamini that if $S$ is a symmetric generating set for a group such that $1\in S$ and $|S^n|\le Mn^D$ at some sufficiently large scale $n$ then $S$ exhibits polynomial growth of the same degree $D$ at all subsequent scales, in the sense that $|S^r|\ll_{M,D}r^D$ for every $r\ge n$. Our methods also provide an important ingredient in a forthcoming companion paper in which we reprove and sharpen a result about scaling limits of vertex-transitive graphs of polynomial growth due to Benjamini, Finucane and the first author. We also note that our arguments imply that every approximate group has a large subset with a large quotient that is Freiman isomorphic to a subset of a torsion-free nilpotent group of bounded rank and step.

math.GR↗

arXiv2018

Scaling limits of Cayley graphs with polynomially growing balls

Benjamini, Finucane and the first author have shown that if (G_n,S_n) is a sequence of Cayley graphs such that |S_n^n|=O(n^D|S_n|), then the sequence (G_n,d_{S_n}/n) is relatively compact for the Gromov-Hausdorff topology and every cluster point is a connected nilpotent Lie group equipped with a left-invariant sub-Finsler metric. In this paper we show that the dimension of such a cluster point is bounded by D, and that, under the stronger bound |S_n^n|=O(n^D), the homogeneous dimension of a cluster point is bounded by D. Our approach is roughly to use a well-known structure theorem for approximate groups due to Breuillard, Green and Tao to replace S_n^n with a coset nilprogression of bounded rank, and then to use results about nilprogressions from a previous paper of ours to study the ultralimits of such coset nilprogressions. As an application we bound the dimension of the scaling limit of a sequence of vertex-transitive graphs of large diameter. We also recover and effectivise parts of an argument of Tao concerning the further growth of single set S satisfying the bound |S^n| < Mn^D|S|.

math.GR↗

arXiv2018

Finite decomposition complexity and the integral Novikov conjecture for higher algebraic K-theory

Decomposition complexity for metric spaces was recently introduced by Guentner, Tessera, and Yu as a natural generalization of asymptotic dimension. We prove a vanishing result for the continuously controlled algebraic K-theory of bounded geometry metric spaces with finite decomposition complexity. This leads to a proof of the integral K-theoretic Novikov conjecture, regarding split injectivity of the K-theoretic assembly map, for groups with finite decomposition complexity and finite CW models for their classifying spaces. By work of Guentner, Tessera, and Yu, this includes all (geometrically finite) linear groups.

math.KT↗

arXiv2017

On the vanishing of reduced 1-cohomology for Banach representations

A theorem of Delorme states that every unitary representation of a connected Lie group with nontrivial reduced first cohomology has a finite-dimensional subrepresentation. More recently Shalom showed that such a property is inherited by cocompact lattices and stable under coarse equivalence among amenable countable discrete groups. We give a new geometric proof of Delorme's theorem which extends to a larger class of groups, including solvable $p$-adic algebraic groups, and finitely generated solvable groups with finite Prüfer rank. Moreover all our results apply to isometric representations in a large class of Banach spaces, including reflexive Banach spaces. As applications, we obtain an ergodic theorem in for integrable cocycles, as well as a new proof of Bourgain's Theorem that the 3-regular tree does not embed quasi-isometrically into any superreflexive Banach space.

math.GR↗