C3

to follow

Groupoids provide a rich supply of C*-algebras, and there are many results describing the structure of these C*-algebras using properties of the underlying groupoid. For non-Hausdorff groupoids, less is known, largely due to the existence of 'singular' functions in the reduced C*-algebra. This talk will discuss two approaches to studying ideals in non-Hausdorff groupoid C*-algebras. The first uses Timmermann's Hausdorff cover to reduce certain problems to the setting of Hausdorff groupoids. The second will restrict to isotropy groups. For amenable second-countable étale groupoids, these techniques allow us to characterise when the ideal of singular functions has dense intersection with the underlying groupoid *-algebra. This is based on joint work with K. A. Brix, J. B. Hume, and X. Li, as well as upcoming work with J. B. Hume.

to follow

to follow

The Cuntz semigroup of a C*-algebra A consists of equivalence classes of positive elements, where equivalence means roughly that two positive elements have the same rank relative to A.  It can be thought of as a generalization of the Murray von Neumann semigroup to positive elements and is an incredibly sensitive invariant. We present a calculation of the homotopy groups of these Cuntz classes as topological subspaces of A when A is classifiable in the sense of Elliott.  Remarkably, outside the case of compact classes, these spaces turn out to be contractible.  

A famous theorem of Selberg asserts that $\log|\zeta(\tfrac12+it)|$ is approximately a normal distribution with mean $0$ and variance $\tfrac12\log\log T$, when we sample $t\in [T,2T]$ uniformly. This extends in a natural way to a plethora of other $L$-functions, one of them being Dirichlet $L$-functions $L(s,\chi)$ with $\chi$ a primitive Dirichlet character. Viewing $\zeta(\tfrac12+it)$ and $L(\tfrac12+it,\chi)$ as normal variables, we expect indepedence between them, meaning that for fixed $V_1,V_2 \in \mathbb{R}$: $$\textrm{meas}_{t \in [T,2T]} \left\{\frac{\log|\zeta(\tfrac12+it)|}{\sqrt{\tfrac12 \log\log T}}\geq V_1 \text{   and   } \frac{\log|L(\tfrac12+it,\chi)|}{\sqrt{\tfrac12 \log\log T}}\geq V_2\right\} \sim \prod_{j=1}^2 \int_{V_j}^\infty e^{-x^2/2} \frac{\textrm{d}x}{\sqrt{2\pi}}.$$
    When $V_j\asymp \sqrt{\log\log T}$, i.e. we are considering values of order of the variance, the asymptotic above breaks down, but the Gaussian behaviour is still believed to hold to order. For such $V_j$ the behaviour of the joint distribution is decided by the moments $$I_{k,\ell}(T)=\int_T^{2T} |\zeta(\tfrac12+it)|^{2k}|L(\tfrac12+it,\chi)|^{2\ell}\, dt.$$ We establish that $I_{k,\ell}(T)\asymp T(\log T)^{k^2+\ell^2}$ for $0<k,\ell \leq 1$. The lower bound holds for all $k,\ell >0$. This allows us to decide the order of the joint distribution when $V_j =\alpha_j\sqrt{\log\log T}$ for $\alpha_j \in (0,\sqrt{2}]$. Other corollaries include sharp moment bounds for Dedekind zeta functions of quadratic number fields, and Hurwitz zeta functions with rational parameter. 
    

Let G be an infinite discrete group; e.g. free group, surface groups, or hyperbolic 3-manifold group.

Finite dimensional unitary representations of G of fixed dimension are usually very hard to understand. However, there are interesting notions of convergence of such representations as the dimension tends to infinity. One notion — strong convergence — is of interest both from the point of view of G alone but also through recently realized applications to spectral gaps of locally symmetric spaces. For example, this notion bypasses (unconditionally) the use of Selberg's Eigenvalue Conjecture in obtaining existence of large area hyperbolic surfaces with near-optimal spectral gaps. 

The talk is a broadly accessible discussion on these themes, based on joint works with W. Hide, L. Louder, D. Puder, J. Thomas, R. van Handel.

Roe algebras were introduced in the late 1990's in the study of indices of elliptic operators on (locally compact) Riemannian manifolds. Roe was particularly interested in coarse equivalences of metric spaces, which is a weaker notion than that of quasi-isometry. In fact, soon thereafter it was realized that the isomorphism class of these class of C*-algebras did not depend on the coarse equivalence class of the manifold. The converse, that is, whether this class is a complete invariant, became known as the 'Rigidity Problem for Roe algebras'. In this talk we will discuss an affirmative answer to this question, and how to approach its proof. This is based on joint work with Federico Vigolo.

A landmark result in the study of locally compact, abelian groups is the Pontryagin duality. In simple terms, it says that for a given locally compact, abelian group G, one can uniquely associate another locally compact, abelian group called the Pontryagin dual of G. In the realm of C*-algebras, whenever such an abelian group G acts on a C*-algebra A, there is a canonical action of the dual group of G on the crossed product of A by G. In particular, it is natural to ask to what extent one can relate properties of the given G-action to those of the dual action. 

In this talk, I will first introduce a property for actions of locally compact abelian groups called the abelian Rokhlin property and then state a duality type result for this property. While the abelian Rokhlin property is in general weaker than the known Rokhlin property, these two properties coincide in the case of the acting group being the real numbers. Using the duality result mentioned above, I will give new examples of continuous actions of the real numbers which satisfy the Rokhlin property. Part of this talk is based on joint work with Johannes Christensen and Gábor Szabó.