[Binghamton Geometry/Topology Seminar] Geometry/Topology Seminar

[Christoforos Neofytidis]

BINGHAMTON GEOMETRY/TOPOLOGY SEMINAR

   Date: Thursday, February 9th, 2017

   Time: 2.50 pm

   Place: Whitney Hall, Room 100E

   Speaker: Wiktor Mogilski (SUNY at Binghamton)

  Title: The Strong Atiyah Conjecture and computations of $L^2$-Betti numbers

Abstract: The Strong Atiyah Conjecture predicts that for any group $G$
with bounded torsion, the $L^2$-Betti numbers of any $G$-space are
rational, with denominators determined by the order of the torsion
subgroups. In this talk we will restrict ourselves to the setting of
Coxeter groups, and I will present a special trick that, in many cases,
improves the Strong Atiyah Conjecture prediction of the denominators of
the $L^2$-Betti numbers. In many examples, this improvement (along with
additional work) allows us to make complete computations of the
$L^2$-Betti numbers. I will conclude by exploiting this trick to obtain
new affirmative results regarding the Singer Conjecture for Coxeter
groups. This is joint work with Kevin Schreve.

NOTE:  The seminar has a webpage where the semester's program is listed:

http://www2.math.binghamton.edu/p/seminars/topsem