Groups and Operator Algebras Seminar

Speaker:  Brent Nelson (Michigan State University)

Title:  Almost unimodular groups

Abstract: The study of locally compact groups is often partitioned into the unimodular and non-unimodular cases; that is, when the modular function of the group is trivial or not. But the modular function offers another natural dichotomy: it is either an open map onto the positive real numbers, or its kernel is open. In this talk I will discuss an operator algebraic perspective on this dichotomy and how it can be used to assign a Murray-von Neumann dimension to representations of groups in the latter class. This is based on joint work with Aldo Garcia Guinto.