Titles and abstracts will be posted here as they become available.

Timothée Bénard (Cambridge)

Title: Inverse problem for the harmonic measure

Abstract: Sample paths of a random walk on a hyperbolic group are known to converge to the Gromov boundary. The distribution of the exit point is called the harmonic measure. I will discuss the following inverse problem: how much information on the law of increment of the walk can be deduced from the harmonic measure at infinity? I will explain how one can address this question by studying some winding statistics of a typical geodesic ray on the group chosen randomly by the harmonic measure.

Rhiannon Dougall (Durham)

Title: Group extensions and unitary representations

Abstract: I will motivate the study of group extensions (for instance with dynamics and geometry) from which you will inevitably be led to thinking in terms of unitary representations. (And possibly vice-versa.) If I am feeling ambitious I will discuss mixing for a tower of finite sheeted covers.

Maik Gröger (Jagiellonian University)

Title: Continuity of Følner averages

Abstract: The notion of generic/mean points goes back to the seminal work of Krylov and Bogolyubov. The first to investigate the question of what happens when all points of a dynamical system are generic for some invariant measure seem to be Dowker and Lederer in 1964. As it turns out, combining this property with other topological regularity criteria yields measure-theoretic rigidity results of the dynamical system. For example, minimality of the system implies its unique ergodicity in this setting. Another natural topological criterion in place of minimality is to assume that the map, which assigns each point its invariant measure to which it is generic, is continuous. By several recent works by different authors, the following picture emerges for abelian group actions in this setting: each point is generic for some ergodic measure and even stronger, each orbit closure is uniquely ergodic. In my talk, I will show that this is no longer the case for general actions by topological amenable groups, providing concrete counter examples involving the group of all orientation preserving homeomorphisms on the unit interval as well as the Lamplighter group. Moreover, in the course of the talk I will elaborate on the recently introduced notion of weak mean equicontinuity if time permits. This is joint work with G. Fuhrmann and T. Hauser.

Anders Karlsson (Geneva and Uppsala)

Title: Metric spaces, an ergodic theorem and theoretical aspects of deep learning

Abstract: The composition of random transformations appears in many scientific contexts, such as the theory of dynamical systems, random walks on groups or the time evolution of various systems subject to some randomness. It also appears in deep learning in several ways. There is a general ergodic theorem for such noncommutative random products that was developed and established in joint works with Ledrappier and with Gouëzel. Special cases (in view of some separate geometric arguments) include Oseledets’ multiplicative ergodic theorem for invertible matrices, Thurston’s spectral theorem for surface homeomorphisms, and random mean ergodic theorems. The metric methods involved are part of what could be called metric functional analysis, in analogy with ordinary (linear) functional analysis. In joint work with B. Avelin, we display semi-invariant metric for some of the more standard choices of deep neural networks. Then the noncommutative ergodic theorem can be applied to the common random initialization procedure and guarantee a certain stability and regularity that recent research suggests might be advantageous for the learning.

Sabrina Kombrink (Birmingham)

Title: Asymptotic expansions of functions related to the geometry of fractals

Ian Morris (QMUL)

Title: A variational principle relating self-affine measures and self-affine sets