Arbeitsgemeinschaft: Totally Disconnected Groups

Abstract

Locally compact groups are ubiquitous in the study of many continuous or discrete structures across geometry, analysis and algebra. Every locally compact group is an extension of a connected group by a totally disconnected group. The connected case has been studied in depth, notably using Lie theory, a culminating point being reached in the 1950s with the solution to Hilbert’s 5th problem. The totally disconnected case, by contrast, remains full of challenging questions. A series of new results has been obtained in the last twenty years, and today the activity in this area is witnessing a sharp increase. These texts report on the recent Arbeitsgemeinschaft on this topic.