Please note that the list below only shows forthcoming events, which may not include regular events that have not yet been entered for the forthcoming term. Please see the past events page for a list of all seminar series that the department has on offer.

 

Past events in this series


Tue, 13 Oct 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Tomer Zimhoni
(Ben Gurion University of the Negev)
Abstract

to follow

Tue, 20 Oct 2026
16:00
L5

On the space of subgroups of Baumslag-Solitar groups 

Sasha Bontemps
Abstract

Any countable group G comes equipped with a canonical dynamical system, namely its conjugation action on its space of subgroups Sub(G). This 0-dimensional compact space is a central object in measured and geometric group theory, especially because it supports invariant and stationary random subgroups.

In general, describing this space is hard. In 2024, Carderi, Gaboriau, Le Maître, and Stalder initiated the study of the space of subgroups of non-amenable Baumslag-Solitar groups BS(m,n). They provided an explicit description of the perfect kernel of Sub(BS(m,n)). This is the largest closed subspace without isolated points, i.e. the space that remains after performing successive derivations that remove the isolated points.

In this talk, I will provide a complete classification of the spaces Sub(BS(m,n)) up to homeomorphism. I will prove that there exist exactly four homeomorphism types among the non-amenable ones. This relies on a detailed study of the Cantor-Bendixson erasing process, which depends on the arithmetical properties of the parameters m,n. This is based on a joint work with Damien Gaboriau, François Le Maître, and Yves Stalder.

Fri, 30 Oct 2026
14:00
L5

TBC

Kang Li
(Lund University)
Abstract

to follow

Tue, 03 Nov 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

William Slofstra
(University of Waterloo)
Abstract

to follow

Tue, 17 Nov 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Jani Virtanen
(University of Eastern Finland and University of Reading)
Abstract

to follow

Tue, 24 Nov 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Ryan O'Loughlin
(University of Reading)
Abstract

to follow

Tue, 01 Dec 2026
16:00
L5

TBC

Jesse Reimann
(Delft University)
Abstract

to follow