Valette, Alain

2008, Bekka, Bachir, Valette, Alain, De La Harpe, Pierre

1995, Bekka, Bachir, Valette, Alain

Let Gamma be a lattice in a non-compact simple Lie group G. We prove that the canonical map from the full C*-algebra C*(Gamma) to the multiplier algebra M(C*(G)) is not injective in general (it is never injective if G has Kazhdan's property (T), and not injective for many lattices either in SO(n, 1) or SU(n, 1)). For a locally compact group G, Fell introduced a property (WF3), stating that for any closed subgroup H of G, the canonical map from C*(H) to M(C*(G)) is injective. We prove that, for an almost connected G, property (WF3) is equivalent to amenability.

1997, Bekka, Bachir, Valette, Alain

For an infinite, finitely generated group Gamma, we study the first cohomology group H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) with coefficients in the left regular representation lambda(Gamma) of Gamma on l(2)(Gamma). We first prove that H-1(Gamma, C Gamma) embeds into H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)); as a consequence, if H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) = 0, then Gamma is not amenable with one end. For a Cayley graph X of Gamma, denote by HD(X) the space of harmonic functions on X with finite Dirichlet sum. We show that, if Gamma is not amenable, then there is a natural isomorphism between H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) and HD(X)/C (the latter space being isomorphic to the first L-2-cohomology space of Gamma). We draw the following consequences: (1) If Gamma has infinitely many ends, then HD(X) not equal C; (2) If Gamma has Kazhdan's property (T), then HD(X) = C; (3) The property H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) = 0 is a quasi-isometry invariant; (4) Either H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) = 0 or H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) is infinite-dimensional; (5) If Gamma = Gamma(1) x Gamma(2) with Gamma(1) non-amenable and Gamma(2) infinite, then H-1(Gamma, lambda(Gamma)) = 0.

1993, Bekka, Bachir, Valette, Alain

1995, Bekka, Bachir, Cherix, Pierre-Alain, Valette, Alain

1993, Bekka, Bachir, Valette, Alain