Topics in Topology: Geometric Group Theory
Spring 2010
The course syllabus can be found here
Course description:
This course is be intended as a survey of various important topics in geometric group theory. I aim to discuss the following:
- group actions, groups as metric spaces
- group splittings and accessibility: Bass-Serre theory from [Scott-Wall], Stallings' Theorem
- Gromov hyperbolic spaces and groups from [Bridson-Haefliger]
- CAT(0) spaces and groups from [Bridson-Haefliger]
As time and class interest permit, we may also get to some of:
- boundaries at infinity
- asymptotic cones
- growth of groups
Homework assignments:
References:
- A paper by Scott and Wall
- Some lemmas about group actions on trees
- Some of the book by Bridson and Haefliger is available at google books
- A paper by Drutu