Activities This Week

A subset S of a group G invariably generates G if for every choice of $g(s)\in G$ ,$s\in S$ the set ${s^g(s):s\in S}$ is a generating set of G. We say that a group G is invariably generated if such S exists, or equivalently if S=G invariably generates G. In this talk, we study invariable generation of Thompson groups. We show that Thompson group F is invariably generated by a finite set, whereas Thompson groups T and V are not invariable generated. This is joint work with Tsachik Gelander and Kate Juschenko.

The sharp threshold phenomenon is a central topic of research in the analysis of Boolean functions. Here, one aims to give sufficient conditions for a monotone Boolean function f to satisfy\mu_p(f)=o(\mu_q(f)), where q = p + o(p), and \mu_p(f) is the probability that f=1 on an input with independent coordinates, each taking the value 1 with probability p.

The dense regime, where \mu_p(f)=\Theta(1), is somewhat understood due to seminal works by Bourgain, Friedgut, Hatami, and Kalai. On the other hand, the sparse regime where \mu_p(f)=o(1) was out of reach of the available methods. However, the potential power of the sparse regime was suggested by Kahn and Kalai already in 2006.

In this talk we show that if a monotone Boolean function f with \mu_p(f)=o(1) satisfies some mild pseudo-randomness conditions then it exhibits a sharp threshold in the interval [p,q], with q = p+o(p). More specifically, our mild pseudo-randomness hypothesis is that the p-biased measure of f does not bump up to Θ(1) whenever we restrict f to a sub-cube of constant co-dimension, and our conclusion is that we can find q=p+o(p), such that \mu_p(f)=o(\mu_q(f)).

We will present a model for construction of random fractals which is called fractal percolation. The main result that will be presented in this talk states that a typical fractal percolation set E intersects every set which is winning for a certain game that is called the “hyperplane absolute game”, and the intersection has the same Hausdorff dimension as E. An example of such a winning set is the set of badly approximable vectors in dimension d. In order to prove this theorem one may show that a typical fractal percolation set E contains a sequence of Ahlfors-regular subsets with dimensions approaching the dimension of E, where all the subsets in this sequence are also “hyperplane diffuse”, which means that they are not concentrated around affine hyperplanes when viewed in small enough scales. If time permits, we will sketch the proof of this theorem and present a generalization to a more general model for random construction of fractals which is given by projecting Galton-Watson trees against any similarity IFS whose attractor is not contained in a single affine hyperplane.