The universality of Hughes-free division rings

Let E∗ G be a crossed product of a division ring E and a locally indicable group G. Hughes showed that up to E∗ G-isomorphism, there exists at most one Hughes-free division E∗G-ring. However, the existence of a Hughes-free division E∗ G-ring DE∗G for an arbitrary locally indicable group G is still an open question. Nevertheless, DE∗G exists, for example, if G is amenable or G is bi-orderable. In this paper we study, whether DE∗G is the universal division ring of fractions in some of these cases. In particular, we show that if G is a residually-(locally indicable and amenable) group, then there exists DE[G] and it is universal. In Appendix we give a description of DE[G] when G is a RFRS groupThis paper is partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the grant MTM2017-82690-P and the “Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres of Excellence in R&D” (CEX2019-000904-S4). I would like to thank Dawid Kielak and an anonymous referee for useful suggestions and comment

Kazhdan quotients of Golod-Shafarevich groups

The main goal of this paper is to prove that every Golod-Shafarevich group has an infinite quotient with Kazhdan's property $(T)$. In particular, this gives an affirmative answer to the well-known question about non-amenability of Golod-Shafarevich groups.Comment: 38 pages, final preprint version (slightly different from the published version