In this book, Pierre de la Harpe provides a concise and engaging introduction to geometric group theory, a new method for studying infinite groups via their intrinsic geometry that has played a major role in mathematics over the past two decades. A recognized expert in the field, de la Harpe adopts a hands-on approach, illustrating key concepts with numerous concrete examples. The first five chapters present basic combinatorial and geometric group theory in a unique and refreshing way, with an emphasis on finitely generated versus finitely presented groups. In the final three chapters, de la Harpe discusses new material on the growth of groups, including a detailed treatment of the "Grigorchuk group." Most sections are followed by exercises and a list of problems and complements, enhancing the book's value for students; problems range from slightly more difficult exercises to open research problems in the field. An extensive list of references directs readers to more advanced results as well as connections with other fields.

The key idea in geometric group theory is to study infinite groups by endowing them with a metric and treating them as geometric spaces. This applies to many groups naturally appearing in topology, geometry, and algebra, such as fundamental groups of manifolds, groups of matrices with integer coefficients, etc. The primary focus of this book is to cover the foundations of geometric group theory, including coarse topology, ultralimits and asymptotic cones, hyperbolic groups, isoperimetric inequalities, growth of groups, amenability, Kazhdan's Property (T) and the Haagerup property, as well as their characterizations in terms of group actions on median spaces and spaces with walls. The book contains proofs of several fundamental results of geometric group theory, such as Gromov's theorem on groups of polynomial growth, Tits's alternative, Stallings's theorem on ends of groups, Dunwoody's accessibility theorem, the Mostow Rigidity Theorem, and quasiisometric rigidity theorems of Tukia and Schwartz. This is the first book in which geometric group theory is presented in a form accessible to advanced graduate students and young research mathematicians. It fills a big gap in the literature and will be used by researchers in geometric group theory and its applications.

Inspired by classical geometry, geometric group theory has in turn provided a variety of applications to geometry, topology, group theory, number theory and graph theory. This carefully written textbook provides a rigorous introduction to this rapidly evolving field whose methods have proven to be powerful tools in neighbouring fields such as geometric topology. Geometric group theory is the study of finitely generated groups via the geometry of their associated Cayley graphs. It turns out that the essence of the geometry of such groups is captured in the key notion of quasi-isometry, a large-scale version of isometry whose invariants include growth types, curvature conditions, boundary constructions, and amenability. This book covers the foundations of quasi-geometry of groups at an advanced undergraduate level. The subject is illustrated by many elementary examples, outlooks on applications, as well as an extensive collection of exercises.

Geometric group theory is the study of the interplay between groups and the spaces they act on, and has its roots in the works of Henri Poincaré, Felix Klein, J.H.C. Whitehead, and Max Dehn. Office Hours with a Geometric Group Theorist brings together leading experts who provide one-on-one instruction on key topics in this exciting and relatively new field of mathematics. It's like having office hours with your most trusted math professors. An essential primer for undergraduates making the leap to graduate work, the book begins with free groups—actions of free groups on trees, algorithmic questions about free groups, the ping-pong lemma, and automorphisms of free groups. It goes on to cover several large-scale geometric invariants of groups, including quasi-isometry groups, Dehn functions, Gromov hyperbolicity, and asymptotic dimension. It also delves into important examples of groups, such as Coxeter groups, Thompson's groups, right-angled Artin groups, lamplighter groups, mapping class groups, and braid groups. The tone is conversational throughout, and the instruction is driven by examples. Accessible to students who have taken a first course in abstract algebra, Office Hours with a Geometric Group Theorist also features numerous exercises and in-depth projects designed to engage readers and provide jumping-off points for research projects.

This book provides a detailed exposition of a wide range of topics in geometric group theory, inspired by Gromov’s pivotal work in the 1980s. It includes classical theorems on nilpotent groups and solvable groups, a fundamental study of the growth of groups, a detailed look at asymptotic cones, and a discussion of related subjects including filters and ultrafilters, dimension theory, hyperbolic geometry, amenability, the Burnside problem, and random walks on groups. The results are unified under the common theme of Gromov’s theorem, namely that finitely generated groups of polynomial growth are virtually nilpotent. This beautiful result gave birth to a fascinating new area of research which is still active today. The purpose of the book is to collect these naturally related results together in one place, most of which are scattered throughout the literature, some of them appearing here in book form for the first time. In this way, the connections between these topics are revealed, providing a pleasant introduction to geometric group theory based on ideas surrounding Gromov's theorem. The book will be of interest to mature undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics who are familiar with basic group theory and topology, and who wish to learn more about geometric, analytic, and probabilistic aspects of infinite groups.

This book is about the interplay between algebraic topology and the theory of infinite discrete groups. It is a hugely important contribution to the field of topological and geometric group theory, and is bound to become a standard reference in the field. To keep the length reasonable and the focus clear, the author assumes the reader knows or can easily learn the necessary algebra, but wants to see the topology done in detail. The central subject of the book is the theory of ends. Here the author adopts a new algebraic approach which is geometric in spirit.

Groups arise naturally as symmetries of geometric objects, and so groups can be used to understand geometry and topology. Conversely, one can study abstract groups by using geometric techniques and ultimately by treating groups themselves as geometric objects. This book explores these connections between group theory and geometry, introducing some of the main ideas of transformation groups, algebraic topology, and geometric group theory. The first half of the book introduces basic notions of group theory and studies symmetry groups in various geometries, including Euclidean, projective, and hyperbolic. The classification of Euclidean isometries leads to results on regular polyhedra and polytopes; the study of symmetry groups using matrices leads to Lie groups and Lie algebras. The second half of the book explores ideas from algebraic topology and geometric group theory. The fundamental group appears as yet another group associated to a geometric object and turns out to be a symmetry group using covering spaces and deck transformations. In the other direction, Cayley graphs, planar models, and fundamental domains appear as geometric objects associated to groups. The final chapter discusses groups themselves as geometric objects, including a gentle introduction to Gromov's theorem on polynomial growth and Grigorchuk's example of intermediate growth. The book is accessible to undergraduate students (and anyone else) with a background in calculus, linear algebra, and basic real analysis, including topological notions of convergence and connectedness. This book is a result of the MASS course in algebra at Penn State University in the fall semester of 2009.