Geodesic flow for CAT(0)-groups

We associate to a CAT(0)-space a flow space that can be used as the replacement for the geodesic flow on the sphere tangent bundle of a Riemannian manifold. We use this flow space to prove that CAT(0)-group are transfer reducible over the family of virtually cyclic groups. This result is an important ingredient in our proof of the Farrell-Jones Conjecture for these groups

The L^2-Alexander torsion of 3-manifolds

We introduce $L^2$-Alexander torsions for 3-manifolds, which can be viewed as a generalization of the $L^2$-Alexander polynomial of Li--Zhang. We state the $L^2$-Alexander torsions for graph manifolds and we partially compute them for fibered manifolds. We furthermore show that given any irreducible 3-manifold there exists a coefficient system such that the corresponding $L^2$-torsion detects the Thurston norm.Comment: 47 pages v3: fixed many typos, updated references and improved the exposition, following the referees suggestion

Euler Characteristics of Categories and Homotopy Colimits

In a previous article, we introduced notions of finiteness obstruction, Euler characteristic, and L^2-Euler characteristic for wide classes of categories. In this sequel, we prove the compatibility of those notions with homotopy colimits of I-indexed categories where I is any small category admitting a finite I-CW-model for its I-classifying space. Special cases of our Homotopy Colimit Formula include formulas for products, homotopy pushouts, homotopy orbits, and transport groupoids. We also apply our formulas to Haefliger complexes of groups, which extend Bass--Serre graphs of groups to higher dimensions. In particular, we obtain necessary conditions for developability of a finite complex of groups from an action of a finite group on a finite category without loops.Comment: 44 pages. This final version will appear in Documenta Mathematica. Remark 8.23 has been improved, discussion of Grothendieck construction has been slightly expanded at the beginning of Section 3, and a few other minor improvements have been incoporate

Finiteness obstructions and Euler characteristics of categories

We introduce notions of finiteness obstruction, Euler characteristic, L^2-Euler characteristic, and M\"obius inversion for wide classes of categories. The finiteness obstruction of a category Gamma of type (FP) is a class in the projective class group K_0(RGamma); the functorial Euler characteristic and functorial L^2-Euler characteristic are respectively its RGamma-rank and L^2-rank. We also extend the second author's K-theoretic M\"obius inversion from finite categories to quasi-finite categories. Our main example is the proper orbit category, for which these invariants are established notions in the geometry and topology of classifying spaces for proper group actions. Baez-Dolan's groupoid cardinality and Leinster's Euler characteristic are special cases of the L^2-Euler characteristic. Some of Leinster's results on M\"obius-Rota inversion are special cases of the K-theoretic M\"obius inversion.Comment: Final version, accepted for publication in the Advances in Mathematics. Notational change: what was called chi(Gamma) in version 1 is now called chi(BGamma), and chi(Gamma) now signifies the sum of the components of the functorial Euler characteristic chi_f(Gamma). Theorem 5.25 summarizes when all Euler characteristics are equal. Minor typos have been corrected. 88 page

The Ore condition, affiliated operators, and the lamplighter group

Let G be the wreath product of Z and Z/2, the so called lamplighter group and k a commutative ring. We show that kG does not have a classical ring of quotients (i.e. does not satisfy the Ore condition). This answers a Kourovka notebook problem. Assume that kG is contained in a ring R in which the element 1-x is invertible, with x a generator of Z considered as subset of G. Then R is not flat over kG. If k is the field of complex numbers, this applies in particular to the algebra UG of unbounded operators affiliated to the group von Neumann algebra of G. We present two proofs of these results. The second one is due to Warren Dicks, who, having seen our argument, found a much simpler and more elementary proof, which at the same time yielded a more general result than we had originally proved. Nevertheless, we present both proofs here, in the hope that the original arguments might be of use in some other context not yet known to us.Comment: LaTex2e, 7 pages. Added a new proof of the main result (due to Warren Dicks) which is shorter, easier and more elementary, and at the same time yields a slightly more general result. Additionally: misprints removed. to appear in Proceedings of "Higher dimensional manifold theory", Conference at ICTP Trieste 200

Equivariant Euler characteristics and K-homology Euler classes for proper cocompact G-manifolds

Let G be a countable discrete group and let M be a smooth proper cocompact G-manifold without boundary. The Euler operator defines via Kasparov theory an element, called the equivariant Euler class, in the equivariant K-homology of M. The universal equivariant Euler characteristic of M, which lives in a group U^G(M), counts the equivariant cells of M, taking the component structure of the various fixed point sets into account. We construct a natural homomorphism from U^G(M) to the equivariant KO-homology of M. The main result of this paper says that this map sends the universal equivariant Euler characteristic to the equivariant Euler class. In particular this shows that there are no `higher' equivariant Euler characteristics. We show that, rationally, the equivariant Euler class carries the same information as the collection of the orbifold Euler characteristics of the components of the L-fixed point sets M^L, where L runs through the finite cyclic subgroups of G. However, we give an example of an action of the symmetric group S_3 on the 3-sphere for which the equivariant Euler class has order 2, so there is also some torsion information.Comment: Published in Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol7/paper16.abs.htm