Wreath products with the integers, proper actions and Hilbert space compression

We prove that the properties of acting metrically properly on some space with walls or some CAT(0) cube complex are closed by taking the wreath product with \Z. We also give a lower bound for the (equivariant) Hilbert space compression of H\wr\Z in terms of the (equivariant) Hilbert space compression of H.Comment: Minor correction

L^2-Betti numbers and Plancherel measure

We compute $L^2$-Betti numbers of postliminal, locally compact, unimodular groups in terms of ordinary dimensions of reduced cohomology with coefficients in irreducible unitary representations and the Plancherel measure. This allows us to compute the $L^2$-Betti numbers for semi-simple Lie groups with finite center, simple algebraic groups over local fields, and automorphism groups of locally finite trees acting transitively on the boundary.Comment: 11 page

Unbounded symmetric operators in KK-homology and the Baum-Connes Conjecture

Using the unbounded picture of analytical K-homology, we associate a well-defined K-homology class to an unbounded symmetric operator satisfying certain mild technical conditions. We also establish an ``addition formula'' for the Dirac operator on the circle and for the Dolbeault operator on closed surfaces. Two proofs are provided, one using topology and the other one, surprisingly involved, sticking to analysis, on the basis of the previous result. As a second application, we construct, in a purely analytical language, various homomorphisms linking the homology of a group in low degree, the K-homology of its classifying space and the analytic K-theory of its C^*-algebra, in close connection with the Baum-Connes assembly map. For groups classified by a 2-complex, this allows to reformulate the Baum-Connes Conjecture.Comment: 42 pages, 3 figure

On Godement's characterisation of amenability

Motivated by a question related to the construction of the Baum-Connes analytical assembly map for locally compact groups, we refine a criterion of Godement for amenability: for a unimodular group G, our criterion says that G is amenable if and only if every compactly supported, positive-definite function has non-negative integral over