PolyMath14: Groups with norms
| Speaker |
Prof. Apoorva Khare
IISc
|
|---|---|
| When |
Mar 12, 2019
from 03:00 PM to 04:00 PM |
| Where | LH006 |
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Abstract: Consider the following three properties of a general group G:
(1) Algebra: G is abelian and torsion-free.
(2) Analysis: G is a metric space that admits a ”norm”, namely, a translation- invariant metric d(.,.) satisfying: d(l,gn) = |n|d(1,g) for all g in G and integers n.
(3) Geometry: G admits a length function with ”saturated” subadditivity for equal arguments: l(g2) = 2l(g) for all g in G.
While these properties may a priori seem different, in fact they turn out to be equivalent. The nontrivial implication amounts to saying that there does not exist a non-abelian group with a ”norm”.
We will discuss motivations from analysis, probability, and geometry; then the proof of the above equivalences; and finally, the logistics of how the problem was solved, via a PolyMath project that began on a blogpost of Terence Tao.
(Joint - as D.H.J. PolyMath - with Tobias Fritz, Siddhartha Gadgil, Pace Nielsen, Lior Silberman, and Terence Tao.)