Amenability for groups is a notion that was first introduced by von
Neumann in 1929 to provide a conceptual explanation for the
Banach-Tarski paradox. The notion has since been exported to many
different areas of mathematics and continues to hold a distinguished
position in fields such as group theory, ergodic theory, and operator
algebras. For von Neumann algebras the notion plays a fundamental
role, with the classification of amenable von Neumann algebras by
Connes and Haagerup being considered a touchstone of the area. In this
talk, I will give a survey of amenability and von Neumann algebras,
emphasizing my own contributions related to von Neumann algebras
associated with lattices in Lie groups.
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Last modified: April 11 2016 - 18:14:43