Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Faculty of Sciences
Sofic groups
MSc Thesis
Supervisor
Mikls Abrt
Alfrd Rnyi Institute of Mathematics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Budapest, 2014
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my advisor, Mikls Abrt, for introducing me to this subject.
I am grateful for the many discussions we had, for his helpful suggestions, and for
his patience with me.
I would also like to thank Bandi Szab for his immense help with the proof of
Theorem 2.2.
Table of contents 1
Contents
Introduction 2
3 Surjunctivity conjecture 34
Bibliography 37
2 Introduction
Introduction
The idea of sofic groups (originally: initially subamenable groups) was intro-
duced by Gromov ([8]) in 1999, as a common generalization of residually finite and
amenable groups. The name sofic, from the Hebrew word meaning finite, was
coined by Weiss ([11]).
Sofic groups are of considerable interest because several important general con-
jectures of group theory were shown to be true for them. Among these, we discuss
Gottschalks surjunctivity conjecture, that was proved by Gromov in [8].
Possibly the biggest open question in the subject is whether all countable groups
are sofic. So far we know that the class of sofic groups is closed under taking sub-
groups, direct products, inverse limits, direct limits, free products, extensions by
amenable groups ([5]), and amalgamation over amenable subgroups ([6], [10]).
The goal of this thesis is to summarize some results about sofic groups and to
clarify a proof of Elek and Szab about the amalgamated products of sofic groups
over amenable subgroups. The original proof in [6] contains an error and is incom-
plete. An alternate proof, using von Neumann algebras, appears in [10].
The structure is as follows: In the first chapter, we define sofic groups, give some
useful and interesting characterizations for them, and review some basic examples.
The second chapter contains the theorems about the class of sofic groups. Finally, in
the third chapter we present a proof of the surjunctivity conjecture for sofic groups.
Chapter 1: Definitions and basic examples 3
Chapter 1
1.1 Definition
Our definition of sofic groups follows [5].
For a finite set A let Map(A) denote the monoid of self-maps of A acting on the
right. We write a f for f (a) and multiplication in Map(A) works as usual: a f g =
(a f ) g = g(f (a)). Let (0, 1) be a real number, then we say that two elements
e, f Map(A) are -similar, or e f , if the number of points a A with ae 6= af
is at most |A|. We say that e, f are (1 )-different if they are not (1 )-similar.
Let G be a group, (0, 1) a real number and F G a finite subset. An (F, )-
quasi-action of G on a finite set A is a function : G Map(A) with the following
properties:
(a) For any two elements e, f F the map (ef ) is -similar to (e)(f ).
(c) For each e F \ {1} the map (e) is (1 )-different from the identity map of
A.
Definition 1.1. The group G is sofic if for all (0, 1) and all finite subsets F G
there exists an (F, )-quasi-action of G.
We can ask for more than this:
Lemma 1.2. If a group G is sofic then for each F G and for each (0, 1)
there is an (F, )-quasi-action of G on a finite set A satisfying the following extra
conditions:
4 Chapter 1: Definitions and basic examples
(b) (1) is the identity map of A, for each 1 6= g G the map (g) is a fixpoint
free bijection and (g 1 ) = (g)1 .
(c) For different elements e, f F {1} the map (e) is (1 )-different from
(f ).
It is clear from the definition that a non-finitely generated group is sofic if and only
if all of its finitely generated subgroups are sofic. Because of this, from now on we
will mostly consider finitely generated groups.
1. For the definition used by Weiss in [11], we need the notion of Cayley graphs.
Let G be a finitely generated group, and S G a fixed finite, symmetric (i.e.
S = S 1 ) generating set. The Cayley graph of G is a directed graph Cay(G, S),
whose edges are labeled by the elements of S: the set of vertices equals G, and
the edges with label s S are the pairs (g, sg) for all g G. Let Br (1) denote
the r-ball around 1 Cay(G, S) (it is an edge-colored graph, and also a finite
subset in G).
The above proposition, i.e. the equivalence of the two definitions was proven
in [4].
Proof. First suppose we have a set S with this property. Let (0, 1) and
F G, |F | < be arbitrary. We can assume that 1 F . Since S is a
generating set, we can write every element of F as a product of elements of S.
Consider a shortest such word for each element in F F , and take the maximum
of the length of these words, where F F = {ef | e, f F }. Since F is a finite
set, this is a finite number, let us denote it by t.
We can find a (k, )-quasi-action of G, where k = 2t + 1. Call this quasi-action
: FS Sn . Let A [n] be the set described in the proposition. We define
: F F Map([n]) the following way. For e F F and x A, then we can
find w FS such that f (w) = e and the length of w is at most t. Define
x(e) = x(w).
Ae such that |Ae | > (1 )|A| and (e) has no fixpoints in Ae . Let A0 be the
intersection of all these Ae1 ,e2 s and Ae s. Clearly
X X
|A0 | > |A| |A\Ae1 ,e2 | |A\Ae | (1m2 m)|A| = (1)|A|.
e1 ,e2 F eF \{1}
On this intersection the above statements hold simultaneously for all elements
of F .
For s S FS let us define (s)|A0 = (f (s))|A0 and extend it to A as a
bijection. It is possible since by the definition of A0 (e) is injective on A0 for
e F . Let |A| = n and identify A with [n]. This way we defined : S Sn ,
which gives a homomorphism : FS Sn . One can easily check that this
is a (k, )-quasi-action.
4. Let G be a finitely generated group, and let Sub(G) denote the set of subgroups
endowed with the Chabauty topology, which is just the product topology on
the set of subsets of G restricted to the set of subgroups. This is a compact
topological space, G acts on it by conjugation, and this action is by homeo-
morphisms.
An invariant random subgroup (IRS) of G is a random subgroup of G whose
distribution is a G-invariant probability measure on Sub(G). For example if
N / G then the Dirac measure N is an IRS. If H G, |G : H| < , then H
has finitely many conjugates, let H denote the uniform probability measure
on these conjugates. This is also an IRS.
Recall that a sequence {n }nN of probabilitiy measures weak? converges to
if for every real valued continuous function f we have
Z Z
f dn f d.
Definition 1.7. A finitely generated group is amenable if one of its Cayley graphs
admits a Flner sequence. Note that this property does not depend on the generating
set.
If |S| = 2d, then the Cayley graph is d-regular. We know that the Fn s have small
boundary for large enough n. Let
where Nr (X) denotes the r-neighborhood of a subgraph X. This means that we have
omitted those points from Fn that are close to its complement. All the remaining
points have the property that their r-neighborhood in Fn is isomorphic to an r-ball
in the Cayley graph. Clearly
|Fn0 | = |Fn | |Fn Nr (Cay(, S) \ Fn )| > |Fn | |Nr1 (Fn )| |Fn | |Fn |dr1 .
So
r1 |Fn |
|Fn0 | > 1d |Fn |.
|Fn |
|Fn | 1
This means if we choose n such that |Fn |
< dr1 , then
Remark 1.9. Generally we say that a group is amenable is for every > 0 and for
each finite set F there is a finite subset A such that F does not move A
too much, i.e.
|Ag \ A| < |A| for every g F.
Notice that for finitely generated groups, this is equivalent to the definition we used
above.
If G is not necessarily finitely generated, then G is amenable if and only is all of its
finitely generated subgroups are amenable. It follows that every amenable group is
sofic.
There is another large class of groups for which it is easy to see that they are
sofic: residually finite groups. Recall that a group G is residually finite if for every
1 6= g G there is a normal subgroup N / G, |G : N | < such that g
/ N . This is
equivalent to
\
N = {1}.
N /G,|G:N |<
Proof. Let G be residually finite and F G an arbitrary finite set. This means
we can find a normal subgroup N / G, |G : N | < such that the factor map
Chapter 1: Definitions and basic examples 9
Chapter 2
In this chapter we prove the following two theorems about the class of sofic groups.
Theorem 2.1 (Elek-Szab, [5]). The class of sofic groups is closed under the fol-
lowing constructions:
2. free products
Theorem 2.2 (Elek-Szab, Punescu, [6] and [10]). Free products of sofic groups
amalgamated over arbitrary amenable subgroups are sofic.
Proof of part 1. of Theorem 2.1 by [5]. Suppose that G is sofic and H G. Let
F H finite and (0, 1). Then of course F G as well, and an (F, )-quasi-
action of G is an (F, )-quasi-action of H too. So H is sofic.
Next let G1 and G2 be sofic groups. We would like to prove that G1 G2 is sofic as
well. Let (0, 1), F G1 G2 be a finite subset, then we can choose finite sets
Fi Gi (i = 1, 2) such that F F1 F2 . Since G1 and G2 are sofic, there exist
(Fi , 2 )-quasi-actions i : Gi Map(Ai ). Let A = A1 A2 , and define : G1 G2
Map(A) the following way:
Q
F {1}. Hence all ((F ), )-quasi-action of iJ Gi gives us an (F, )-quasi-action of
G. This is just a finite direct product, and for that we already proved the statement.
An inverse limit of groups is by definition a subgroup of their direct product, so that
part of the theorem follows from the previous ones.
Assume we have a directed system of sofic groups {Gi }iI , let G = limiI Gi . Fix
(0, 1) and a finite set F G. Then there is an index i and a finite subset Fi Gi
such that the natural homomorphism i : Gi G is a bijection Fi F .
Denote by G b Gi that has the property
b the image of Gi in G. Choose a map s : G
that i (s(g)) = g for all g G.
b Let i : Gi Map(A) be an (Fi , )-quasi-action of
Gi . Then define : G Map(A) as follows. For a A let
a i (s(g)), if g G
b
a (g) =
a, if g G \ G.
b
Proposition 2.3. For arbitrary 0 < and k N, we can choose and n0 such that
if n > n0 and : FS Sn and : FS 0 Sn are as above, then the following holds.
There exists Sn such that b is a (k, )-quasi-action of G H.
Proof. Let f denote the factor map from FSS 0 to G H and let us define the set of
good points in [n] for a word w FSS 0 :
The set good points for all words of length at most k is denoted by
\
A = A,w .
l(w)k
12 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
This means that we have to find a lower bound for E(|A,w |). For the identity
element A,1 = [n] for every , so any lower bound works here. Let us fix w FSS 0 ,
where w 6= 1 and has length at most k. The word w has the following form: w =
g1 h1 g2 h2 . . . gl hl , where gj FS and hj FS 0 for each j, and for j 6= 1 gj 6= 1 and
j 6= l hj 6= 1.
There are two cases: The first one is that no f (gi ) or f 0 (hi ) equals the identity
element of G or H (except when g1 or hl is the empty word in FSS 0 ). The second
is that this doesnt hold, which means that w is not one of the shortest words in
f1 (f(w)).
1. In this case A,w is the set of non-fixpoints of b (w). Assume that g1 6= 1 and
hl 6= 1.
b (w) = 1 1 2 3 1 4 . . . 2l .
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 13
1. If x2m = xi for 0 i 2m 1.
2. When x2m is a fixpoint of m+1 , hence x2m+1 = x2m . There are at most n
such points. (Because m+1 6= id.)
1
3. If x2m+1 = xi for 0 i 2m 1, so xi m+1 are also bad points.
Summing these up we get that there are at most 4m + n bad points. In the
case when m + 1 = 2l there are no bad points of the second and third kind,
but if we subtract those as well, we still get a lower bound. So the probability
we are interested in is
n (m 1) (4m + n) n 5m n (1 )n 10l
P(Em+1 |Em ) .
n (m 1) n n
The last inequality holds because m 2l.
Since Em+1 Em ,
P(Em+1 )
P(Em+1 |Em ) = .
P(Em )
Using this we get a lower bound on E2l :
2l1 2l1
Y Y (1 )n 10l
P(E2l ) = P(E1 ) P(Ei+1 |Ei ) (1 ) =
i=1 i=1
n
2l1
(1 )n 10l
= (1 ) ,
n
where we used the fact that E1 is the event that x 6= x1 . But E2l is the event
that the trajectory of x consists of different points, so
2l1 k+1
(1 )n 10l (1 )n 5k 10
P(x B,w ) (1) (1) .
n n
14 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
Iterate this step until we get a word w which has the form (g1 )h1 g2 . . . gt (ht ),
where none of the (gi )s and (hi )s are equal to the identity. We can get
here in finitely many steps since the length of the word decreases in each step.
In other words, this w belongs to the first case. So we already have a lower
bound for E(|A,w |). As we saw, these steps do not change the b -image of
our word, so b (w) = b (w). This means that the same lower bound works for
E(|A,w |) too.
We showed that the above holds for each w of length at most k. From this we get
X
E(|A |) n (n E(|A,w |))
l(w)k
k+1
X (1 )n 5k 10
n (n n(1 ) ),
n
l(w)k
k+1 !
X (1 )n 5k 10
E(|A |) n 1 1 (1 ) .
n
l(w)k
Let r denote the number of words in FSS 0 that have length at most k. We could
calculate precisely but all that matters is that r is some finite number, that depends
only on |S S 0 | and k. Let 0 < /r.
Let k+1
(1 )n 5k 10
(1 ) = an, .
n
As n goes to infinity, an, (1 )k+2 . Choose such that (1 )k+2 > 1 0 /2.
This way there exists n0 such that if n > n0 , then an, > 1 0 . So for n > n0 we
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 15
have
X X
E(|A |) n 1 (1 an, ) > n 1 0 = n(1 r0 ) > n(1 ).
l(w)k l(w)k
Theorem 2.4. If G and H are sofic groups then their free product G H is also a
sofic group.
2.2 Extensions
Proposition 2.5. Let N be a sofic group, and let N /G such that G/N is amenable.
Then G is sofic.
Remark 2.6. Before we begin the proof, let us get a picture of what we would like
to do. Consider the finitely generated case, when N = hXi, G = hX Y i such that
G/N = h(Y )i where : G G/N is the factor map. Fix the numbers r N and
> 0.
Because of the soficity of N we can choose an approximation of Cay(N, X), call it
B. SinceG/N is amenable, we can find a subgraph A Cay(G/N, (Y )) with small
boundary.
We construct a graph in the following way:
16 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
Into each copy of V (B) we can draw the graph B, these will be the X-colored
edges.
Now let {a1 } B and {a2 } B be two copies of this B such that a1 a2 is
a y-labeled edge for some y Y . First draw an y-edge between (a1 , b) and
(a2 , b) for some b B. This one edge determines the other y-colored edges
between {a1 } B and {a2 } B. Denote by b g the endpoint of the path
corresponding to g N starting from b. Then draw a y-edge between (a1 , b g)
and (a2 , b y 1 gy).)
The previously described strategy works for the edges of a spanning tree of A.
After that if we take an edge a1 a2 then this gives us a cycle. This means that we
have to be careful when drawing the first edge between {a1 } B and {a2 } B,
because that cycle in Cay(G/N, (Y )) might not be a cycle in Cay(G, X Y ).
However, it does us a well-defined element in N . This determines where we
should draw the first edge, and after this, the procedure is the same.
This method gives us a finite graph edge-labeled by X Y . It turns out that we can
choose these approximations to be so close to the corresponding Cayley graphs, so
that this final graph that we constructed is an (r, )-approximation.
What we described was the main idea of the proof, but in this graph-picture the
calculations would be much more complicated. So we present a combinatorial proof.
Proof of Proposition 2.5. Let F G be a finite set and (0, 1). We aim to find
an (F, )-quasi-action of G.
Denote by : G G/N the factor map, and choose a section of this homomorphism:
: G/N G, such that ((h)) = h for each h G/N . This is equivalent to saying
that g((g))1 N for all g G.
By the amenability of G/N we can find A G/N such that for each h (F ) we
have
|Ah \ A| < |A|.
3
Let A = (A) (so (A) = A) and H = (A F A1 ) N N . Clearly |H| < so
we can find an (H, /3)-quasi-action of N , : N B.
Now we define a map : G Map(A B) as follows. Note that this is the point
where we use the idea described before the proof,
((ag)), b (ag((ag))1 ), if (ag) (A)
a, b (g) =
a, b otherwise.
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 17
This definition makes sense because ag((ag))1 N . We will prove that this
is an (F, )-quasi-action of G on the set A B. Let us check conditions (a)-(c) of
Definition 1.1.
(c) Let e F \ {1}. For this e there are at most |A|/3 elements a A such that
(ae) = (a)(e)
/ A.
If e
/ N then (e) 6= 1 in N . Suppose that (ae) = (a)(e) A for some
a A. Then obviously (ae) 6= (a), hence ((ae)) 6= ((a)) = a. So
in this case, for any b B, (a, b) cannot be a fixpoint of (e), i.e., (e) is
(1 /3)-different from the identity map of A B.
Now consider the case when e N . Then (e) = 1. So (ae) = (a) A for
every a A, and
(a) Let e, f F . As before, there are at most |A|/3 elements of A where (ae)
/
A, and the same amount for f . This means that altogether we have at most
2|A|/3 wrong elements in A.
Now consider those a A when (ae) A and (af ) A. In this case
Here
((((ae))f )) = ((((ae)))(f )) =
= ((aef )), b (g1 ) (g2 ) .
As we can see, the first coordinate is the same, and the second coordinates
are equal too if b (g1 ) (g2 ) = b (g1 g2 ). Since g1 , g2 H and is an
(H, /3)-quasi-action, this is true for at least (1 /3)|B| values of b.
We got that there are at most 2|A|/3 wrong elements in A and at most |B|/3
wrong elements in B for each good a A. For all the other pairs (a, b) we have
a, b (e) (f ) = a, b (ef ).
graph.
Proposition 2.8. The group G is sofic if and only if for any r 1 there exists an
r-approximation of Cay(G, S) by a finite graph.
1
Proof. If G is sofic, then using Proposition 1.3 for = r
and r provides us such a
finite graph.
For the other direction choose R max{r, 1 }, this way an R-approximation is good
for r and in Proposition 1.3, proving that the group G is sofic.
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 19
Definition 2.9. Let E(A) denote the set of edges in a colored graph A. We say that
two colored graphs A and B are r-isomorphic for some r > 0 if there are subgraphs
A0 A and B 0 B such that
0 1 0 1
|E(A )| 1 |E(A)|, |E(B )| 1 |E(B)|
r r
and A0 is isomorphic to B 0 (as colored graphs). The isomorphism between A0 and
B 0 is called an r-isomorphism.
Lemma 2.10. Let G be a sofic group, and S a finite, symmetric generating set of G.
Then for each integer r > 0 there exists an integer Rapp (r) which has the following
property. Whenever a finite graph B is an Rapp (r)-approximation of Cay(G, S) and
A is Rapp (r)-isomorphic to B, then A is an r-approximation of Cay(G, S).
Proof. Suppose that for some R > 0 A and B are R-isomorphic and B is an R-
approximation of the Cayley graph. Then there are B 0 B and A0 A subgraphs
such that B 0
= A0 and |B 0 | > 1 R1 |B|, |A0 | > 1 R1 |A|. There is also B
1
B which is small: |B| < R
|B|, and each point which is in B \ B has a good R-
neighborhood in B.
As before, for a subgraph X let Nr (X) denote the r-neighborhood of X. Let
A00 = A \ Nr (A \ A0 ) A0 .
Let d = |S|, so our graphs are d-regular. Since |A\A0 | < |A|/R, clearly |Nr (A\A0 )| <
dr |A|/R. So
dr
00
|A | > 1 |A|.
R
Let : B 0 A0 be an isomorphism. Let A = (B B 0 ), the -image of the bad
points in B. Consider the subgraph A00 \ A. Its r-neighborhood is still isomorphic
to a subgraph of B and its 1 -image in B is disjoint from B. This means that the
r-ball around any point of A00 \ A is rooted isomorphic to an r-ball in the Cayley
graph.
We also need a lower bound for the size of this subgraph. Clearly
1 1 |B 0 | 1 1 1
|A| |B| < |B| < 1
= |B 0 | = |A0 | |A|.
R R 1 R R1 R1 R1
Hence
dr
00 1
|A \ A| > 1 |A|.
R R1
We can choose R = Rapp (r) such that
dr 1 1
+ < ,
R R r
so the proof of the lemma is complete.
20 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
2.3.1 Quasi-tilings
Let us recall the notion of quasi-tilings from [9].
Let X be a finite set and {Ai }ni=1 be finite subsets of X. We say that {A1 , A2 , . . . , An }
are -disjoint if there exist subsets Ai Ai such that
If i 6= j then Ai Aj = .
| m
j=1 Hj |
.
|X|
Definition 2.13. Let be a finitely generated amenable group with a symmetric
generating set S and let 1 F1 F2 . . . ,
n=1 Fn = be a Flner-exhaustion.
Let Br (x) denote the r-neighborhood of the vertex x in a graph. Let B be a finite
graph edge-labeled by the elements of S, and let L be a natural number. Let
QB
L = {x B : BL (x) ' BL (1) Cay(, S) as edge-labeled graphs}.
Let {Fn1 , Fn2 , . . . , Fns } be a finite collection of the Flner sets above such that for
any 1 i s, Fni BL/2 (1). Then for any x QB
L and 1 i s, Tx (Fni ) is the
image of Fni under the unique colored isomorphism BL (1) BL (x) mapping 1 to
x. We call such a subset a tile of type Fni and say that x is the center of Tx (Fni ). A
system of tiles -quasi-tile V (B) if they are -disjoint and form an (1 )-cover.
Proposition 2.14 (Theorem 2 from [3]). For any > 0, n > 0, there exist L > 0,
> 0 and a finite collection {Fn1 , Fn2 , . . . , Fns } BL (1) of Flner sets such that
ni > n and if
|QBL|
>1
|V (B)|
then V (B) can be -quasi-tiled by tiles of the form Tx (Fni ), x QB
L , 1 i s.
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 21
1
Proof. We can assume that for m n {A1 , . . . , Am } 2r
-quasi-tiles B, and
m n
X 1 X
|Ai | > 1 |Ai |.
i=1
2r i=1
m m 2 Xn n
X 1 X 1 1 X
|Ai | > 1 |Ai | > 1 |Ai | > 1 |Ai |,
i=1
2r i=1 2r i=1
r i=1
and m m 2
X 1 X 1 1
|Ai | > 1 |Ai | > 1 |B| > 1 |B|.
i=1
2r i=1 2r r
So they are indeed r-isomorphic.
Proof. Let v be the maximum number of vertices in Ti , and let t be the largest
integer such that ktk kk. Clearly M () t and kk 1, hence
1 2
k tk kk + tk() ()k kk + t kkt,
M () M ()
22 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
Proof. We can assume that Ai is 1 -quasi-tiled by {B1i , B2i , . . . , Blii } for some li ki .
Let us keep in mind that this implies lj=1 |Bji | > (1 1 ) kj=1 |Bji |.
Pi Pi
According to the definition of -disjointness, there are Ai Ai and Bji Bji sub-
graphs such that
Ai Ai0 = if i 6= i0 ;
Bji Bji 0 = if j 6= j 0 .
Our problem is that these Bji s are not disjoint for different is. The plan is to omit
those which intersect each other and prove that we still have enough Bji s.
Since our graph is d-regular, if D is a subgraph then |Nr (D)| dr |D|. Now let
A0i = Ai \ Nv (Ai \ Ai ).
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 23
Clearly A0i Ai . The following calculations come from the previous observations:
It is also clear that if for some j, A0i Bji 6= then Bji (Ai \ Ai ) = (because
v |V (Bji )|). Let us omit those Bji s that do not intersect their A0i . We can assume
that we are left with {Bji : 1 i n, 1 j mi } for some mi li . This way for
i 6= i0 we have
0
Bji Ai , Bji 0 Ai0 ,
0
so Bji Bji 0 = .
1. It is easier to count the vertices covered by the Bji s because they are disjoint.
First consider just one of the Ai s. Here we have {B1i , B2i , . . . , Bm
i
i
}. We know
that
li
X
|Bji | (1 1 )|Ai |,
j=1
Sli
So there are at most 21 |Ai | points not covered by j=1 Bji in Ai , consequently
there are at most the same number of points not covered by the same set in
A0i . If Bji intersects A0i then j mi . So every vertex in A0i which is in lj=1 Bji
Si
is contained in m
S i i
j=1 Bj as well. Hence
m
[i
Bji A0i > |A0i | 21 |Ai |,
j=1
m
[i
Bji > (1 dv 2 21 )|Ai |.
j=1
m
[n i
[ i
so Bj > (1 dv 2 21 )(1 2 )|B| > (1 dv 2 2 21 )|B|.
i=1 j=1
Hence mi
X
|Bji | > (1 dv 2 21 )|Ai |.
j=1
Pli Sli
Since we know that j=1 |Bji | < | j=1 Bji |/(1 1 ) |Ai |/(1 1 ), we can
estimate
Pmi i
j=1 |Bj | (1 dv 2 21 )|Ai |
Pli i
> |Ai |
= (1 1 )(1 dv 2 21 ) > 1 dv 2 31 .
j=1 |Bj | 11
so
Pmi Pmi Pli
j=1 |Bji | j=1 |Bji |j=1 |Bji |
Pki = Pli Pki > (1 dv 2 31 )(1 1 ) > 1 dv 2 41 .
j=1 |Bji | j=1
i
|Bj | j=1 |Bji |
We can see that these Bji s form an (1 dv 2 2 21 )-cover of B and they contain
(1dv 2 41 ) times all the vertices of B. This means that B almost (dv 2 +2 +41 )-
quasi-tile B.
Proof. By discarding a few elements from F we may assume that the remaining
elements are all r-approximations of Cay(, S). We apply Proposition 2.14 with
parameters 1 and n = 0 (1 shall be given later).
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 25
1
F 00 = {F F 0 : k(F ) uk < and kF k M kH k}.
2M
This F 00 is still a Flner sequence and for each F F 00 we have k(F ) (H )k <
1/M , hence F T can be almost 1 -quasi-tiled by (tF H ) T for some tF N.
Applying again Proposition 2.14 for F 00 and 2 we get a new finite subsequence
T 0 = {Q1 , Q2 , . . . , Qk } F 00 and L0 , 0 . Choose R0 such that R0 > max(L0 , 10 ).
Now let X be an R0 -approximation of Cay(, S). Then X can be 2 -quasi-tiled by
a linear combination of T 0 , say T 0 . Let us examine a tile of type Qi , it can be 1 -
quasi-tiled by Qi T . Since Qi F 00 , we can choose (tQi H (2tQi kH k/M (1 ))1)T
tiles among Qi T such that we omitted at most 1 |Qi T | vertices (according to
the proof of Lemma 2.18). This means that our new tiles cover at least (1 21 )|Qi |
vertices. In other words, (tQi H ) T almost 21 -quasi-tiles this tile of type Qi . We
can do the same for every tile.
So we have exactly the situation of the previous lemma with T 0 2 -quasi-tiling X
and (tQi H ) T almost 21 -quasi-tiling the tiles of type Qi , v = max{|F | : F T }.
Lemma 2.19 tells us that (1 tQ1 + 2 tQ2 + + k tQk ) H T almost (dv 2 +2 +81 )-
quasi-tile X. Here d = |S|/2, since S is a symmetric generating set.
Choose 1 to be 1/16r. This determines T and consequently v. Then we can choose
2 = 1/(2r(dv + 1)). This way
1
dv 2 + 2 + 81 = ,
r
Remark 2.21. Note that this proposition clearly implies Proposition 2.8 from [6].
26 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
Proposition 2.23 (From [5].). For each triple (a, b, r) of integers there is a finite
set S with two partitions and on it such that each -class has a elements, each
-class has b elements, an -class can meet a -class in at most one element, and
in the incidence graph of and each simple cycle is longer than 2r.
Definition 2.25. Let A be a colored graph and Z a subset of the colors used in
A. Then A|Z denotes the subgraph obtained from A by omitting all edges whose
color does not belong to Z. Suppose that C is another colored graph and is an
r-isomorphism between A|Z and C|Z .
We build another graph called the enhancement of C with A along , denoted by
A C. We start from C and add new edges to it. Namely, for each edge a b of
A whose color does not belong to Z we add a new edge (a) (b) of the same
color, provided that is defined at the endpoints a and b.
If we already have k0 , k1 , . . . , ki1 then we can find ki as follows. Consider all the
words that contain at most 2r + 1 i letters from (X Y ) \ Z and at most iki1
letters from Z, and consider the Z-lengths of those that are in . Let the maximum
of these Z-lengths be ki .
Let d = |X Y | = |X| + |Y | |Z|, K = k2r+1 + 2r + 1, and set
r0 > K,
Each Djl contains one Tki,j for a fixed k, so because of our assumption on the Tki,j s
Djl is isomorphic to D. Clearly Dj1 , . . . , DjN are pairwise disjoint and N l
S
l=1 Dj =
SN
i=1 Di,j . This way we ensured that the connected components of a Di,j lie in dif-
ferent Djl s. Now for a fixed l we know that aj=1 Djl is isomorphic to ai=1 Di , let 0
S S
is an r2 -isomorphism. Let us do the same for each l, except that the images should
be different copies of A, say we take aj=1 Djl to Al . This way we defined
S
a [
[ N N
[
: Djl Al ,
j=1 l=1 l=1
it is the same as
a [
[ N
: Di,j A0 .
j=1 i=1
This has the property that is takes all the connected components of a Di,j to
different copies of A and it is indeed an r2 -isomorphism.
The other r2 -isomorphism from N b D to B 0 can be constructed similarly.
In A there exists a subgraph A3 such that |A3 | > (1 1/r3 )|A| and for each
p A3 Br3 (p) in A is isomorphic to the r3 -ball in Cay(G, X). There is a set
B3 B with similar properties. For each -class in C there is an image of this
A3 , let us call the union of these images C3X . Similarly we get C3Y from the
images of B3 . For these we have
X 2 2
|C3 | > 1 |C|, |C3Y | > 1 |C|,
r3 r3
and for every p C3X the r3 -neighborhood of p in C|X\Z still looks good (like
the ball Br3 (1) in Cay(G, X)|X\Z ), and the same holds for every q C3Y in
C|Y \Z . There is 2 in the numerator because the size of the -classes might
differ from the size of A, but at most by |A|/r3 .
Clearly we have
0 4 2 2
|C | > 1 |C|,
r3 r2 r1
and the points in this set still have the previously described properties.
Let C 00 = C \ N2r0 +1 (C \ C 0 ). This means that the 2r0 + 1-neighborhood of C 00 is in
C 0 . Clearly
8
|C \ C 0 | < |C|,
r1
hence
8 8 1
|N2r0 +1 (C \ C 0 )| < d2r0 +1 < d2r0 +1 2r +1
= |C|,
r1 8r0 d 0 r0
1
|C 00 | = |C \ N2r0 +1 (C \ C 0 )| > 1 |C|.
r0
30 Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups
Proof. Let us fix a vertex p C 00 . We need to show two things. First, if there is
a word with letters from X Y that is equal to the identity in the group and has
length at most 2r + 1, then the corresponding path starting from p in C must be a
cycle. Secondly, if we have a simple cycle containing p of length at most 2r + 1 then
the corresponding word must be the identity. These clearly imply our claim.
We will use the following lemma, which can be easily verified by the reader.
Lemma 2.29. Let w be a word with letters from X Y , and suppose that w is the
identity in G H. Then we can get the empty word from w using the following
operation finitely many times. We choose a subword u of w such that u contains
letters only from X or only from Y , and the group element u is in the amenable
subgroup . Then we change it to a word that is equal to u in the group and contains
letters only from Z. (If it is the identity then we can delete it.)
(a) The word wi has at most k i letters from (X Y ) \ Z and at most l + iki
letters from Z. So in particular the length of wi is less than K.
(b) The path Pi is contained in C 0 .
(c) Pi has the same endpoint as Pi1 .
If w0 = w, the statements are trivial for i = 0. Note that (b) follows from (a),
because the length of the path is less than K.
Chapter 2: The class of sofic groups 31
Now consider the step when we get wi from wi1 . Let wi1 = v1 uv2 and
wi = v1 u0 v2 . Let the endpoint of the path corresponding to v1 be q. Now we
know that u contains at most k (i 1) 2r + 1 (i 1) letters from
(X Y ) \ Z and at most l + (i 1)ki1 iki1 letters from Z, hence its
Z-length is at most ki according to the definition of ki . So the length of u0 is
at most ki , and wi contains at most ki + l + (i 1)ki1 < l + iki letters from
Z.
For the third statement, we know that q C 0 . Assume that u has letters only
from X (the proof in the other case is the same), then the path corresponding
to the word u and u0 both lie in C|X . They are equal in the group, both have
length at most K. We also know that the r0 -neighborhood of q in C|X looks
like an r0 -ball in Cay(G, X). So the paths corresponding to u and u0 must end
at the same point. So Pi1 and Pi have the same endpoint as well.
We know that PM is just the empty word, hence its endpoint is p. This means
that all Pi s end at p, in particular the original path P ends there too. So P
is a cycle, this is what we wanted to prove.
2. Now let P be a simple cycle starting and ending at p which has length at most
2r + 1. Let w be the corresponding word in the group. We would like to prove
that this word is equal to the identity in G H. Assume that w contains at
most 2r + 1 i letters from (X Y ) \ Z, and at most i iki1 letters from Z.
Take the map C S, where {s} D goes to the point s S. Consider the
image of P in S. For every edge of P , whose color does not belong to Z, we
draw an edge between the images of the endpoints. The images of the Z-edges
would be loops, that is why we do not consider them. This is a cycle, though
usually it is no longer simple.
But clearly we can find a simple part of this cycle, i.e., there exists P 0 P
such that the endpoints of P 0 are in the same copy of D in C. We can assume
/ P 0 , since there are always at least two such simple parts of a cycle,
that p
so we can choose one that does not contain p.
cannot contain one of the former kind. So u does not contain elements from
Y \ Z.
Let w = v1 uv2 , and let us denote by q the endpoint of the path corresponding
to v1 . So P 0 is a path starting from q and ending in the same D-copy, let us call
this endpoint q 0 . Because of the assumption on the r2 -isomorphism between A
and the -classes, there are no X-colored paths between different components
of this copy of D. Since P 0 is an X-colored path with endpoints in the same
copy, its endpoints must be in the same connected component of D = T .
Since p C 00 , P C 0 . This means that P 0 has an image in A, call this image
P 0 , the endpoints q and q 0 . These endpoints are in the same tile of the quasi-
tiling, because q and q 0 are in the same componenet of D. The size of this tile
is at most the size of D, hence we have a path Q in the tile containing only
Z-edges between q 0 and q, that has length at most |D|. This means that P 0 Q
is a cycle in A.
We also know that q has a good r3 -neighborhood in A. We chose r3 to be
greater than |D| + K, and the length of P 0 Q is at most |D| + K, so the word
corresponding to this path is the identity in the group G.
Let us denote by u0 the corresponding word to Q1 . The previous observation
means that u0 = u in G. Since Q has only edges labeled by Z, u0 contains
only letters from Z. Since u had at most iki1 letters from Z and at most
2r + 1 i letters from X \ Z, the length of u0 is at most ki . This ki is smaller
than K < r0 , and in C the r0 -ball around q looks good, so the corresponding
path to u0 u1 is a cycle in C starting from q.
So we can change our word w = v1 uv2 to v1 u0 v2 . Let w1 be this new word, and
let P1 be the cycle corresponding to w1 . Then w1 is the identity if and only if
w is the identity, so we can continue with w1 . We also know that w1 contains
at most 2r +1i1 letters from (X Y )\Z and at most iki1 +ki (i+1)ki
letters from Z.
From now on, we can do the same as before, everything works similarly (in
other words, we can use induction). We get the words w2 , w3 , . . . , each of them
having length at most K and in the group G H they are all equal. After
2r + 1 i steps we have w2r+1i , that contains only letters from Z, and has
length at most K. The corresponding path P2r+1i is a cycle in C, hence it is
a cycle in A (or in B) as well, and this p has a good r0 -neighborhood in A. So
w2r+1i = 1 in , hence it is the identity element in G H.
We still need to prove the statement in the case when our groups are not necessarily
finitely generated.
Chapter 3
Surjunctivity conjecture
Conjecture 3.1 (Gottschalk). Let G be a countable group and X a finite set. Con-
sider the compact metrizable space X G of X-valued functions on G equipped with
the product topology. Let A : X G X G be a continuous map that commutes with
the natural right G-action. Then if A is injective, it is surjective as well.
We present the main ideas of the proof of this conjecture for sofic groups. The
following proof was communicated by Mikls Abrt.
Theorem 3.2 (Gromov). Let be a finitely generated sofic group, X a finite set
and let A : X X be a continuous -equivariant map, and suppose that A is
injective. Then A is surjective as well.
We will use the following two easy lemmas. We leave the proofs for the reader.
(b) There exists a finite subset H (which depends on A), such that if f, f 0 :
X, f |H = f 0 |H then A(f )(1) = A(f 0 )(1). In other words, the restriction of
f to H determines the value of its A-image on the identity element.
Proof of Theorem 3.2. Let = hSi be a sofic group, where S is a finite symmetric
generating set. For f X we regard f as a coloring of by the elements of X.
Part (b) of Lemma 3.3 provides a finite subset H . Then there exists an integer
L > 0 such that H BL (1) in Cay(, S). This means that for each element g
Cay(, S) and every f X the f -coloring of the L-neighborhood of g determines
A(f )(g), the A(f )-color of g.
Assume that A is not surjective. Then Lemma 3.4 gives us T and f : T X. Let
NL (T ) denote the L-neighborhood of T in Cay(, S) and choose K N such that
NL (T ) BK (1).
Choose {n }
n=1 such that limn n = 0, and {rn }n=1 such that limn rn =
and rn > K for each n N. Since is sofic, for every n we can find a finite graph
Gn that is an (rn , n )-approximation of Cay(, S).
There are subsets Vn V (Gn ) for every n such that for each p Vn , Brn (p) is
isomorphic to Brn (1) in Cay(, S), and we have
Claim 3.5. Since Bn does not contain the forbidden pattern, there exists n0 N
and a constant c > 1, such that for n > n0 we have
This means that for n > n0 we can choose colorings fn Bn X Gn , such that
|A1
n (fn )| > c
|V (Gn )|
.
For n > n0 let xn A1 1
n (fn ). We would like to find yn An (fn ) and pn Vn such
that xn (pn ) 6= yn (pn ). Suppose that for some n there is no such coloring. This means
that for each x0 A1 0
n (fn ), x differs from xn only in the points of V (Gn ) \ Vn . Since
36 Chapter 3: Surjunctivity conjecture
we have |X||V (Gn )\Vn | ways to color these points, we can have at most this amount
of colorings in A1
n (fn ). So
As n 0, there exists n1 such that for n > n1 , |X|n < c. So for n > n1 we have
which is exactly the opposite of the above inequality. This implies that for n > n1
we can find the desired yn and pn .
Recall that a sequence of rooted graphs {(Gi , qi )}
i=1 is rooted convergent and con-
verges to the rooted graph (G, q) if for every R there exist i(R) such that for i > i(R)
the R-ball around qi in Gi is rooted isomorphic to the R-ball around q in G.
Now for n > n1 consider (Gn , pn ) as a rooted graph. Since pn Vn , i.e., pn has a
good rn -neighborhood in Gn , the rooted limit of {(Gn , pn )} is clearly (Cay(, S), 1).
We define three sequences of colorings of as follows. For n > n1 , Brn (pn ) is rooted
isomorphic to Brn (1) in Cay(, S). Using this isomorphism, xn gives us a coloring of
Brn (1). Extend this to the other vertices by x0 X, this way we obtain the coloring
xn X . We get yn from yn , and fn from fn similarly.
Since X is a compact space, every sequence has a convergent subsequence. So we
can find {nk } , such that {xn }, {yn } and {fn } are convergent. Let xn x and
k=1 k k k k
ynk y and fnk f . Since xn (pn ) 6= yn (pn ), we get that x(1) 6= y(1).
This finishes the proof, since x 6= y, A(x) = A(y) contradicts the injectivity of A.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 37
Bibliography
[2] B. Collins and K. J. Dykema, Free products of sofic groups with amalgamation
over monotileably amenable groups, Mnster Journal of Mathematics, 2011,
vol. 4, pp. 101-118.
[3] G. Elek, The strong approximation conjecture holds for amenable groups, Jour-
nal of Functional Analysis, 2006, vol. 239, pp. 345-355.
[4] G. Elek and E. Szab, Sofic groups and direct finiteness, Journal of Algebra,
2004, vol. 280, no. 2, pp. 426-434.
[5] G. Elek and E. Szab, On sofic groups, Journal of group theory, 2006, vol. 9,
no. 2, pp. 161-171.
[9] D. S. Ornstein and B. Weiss, Entropy and isomorphism theorems for actions of
amenable groups, Journal dAnalyse Mathmatique, 1987, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 1-
141.
[11] B. Weiss, Sofic groups and dynamical systems, Sankhya: The Indian Journal in
Statistics, special issue on Ergodic Theory and Harmonic Analysis, 2000, vol. 62,
series A, pt. 3, pp. 350-359.