Mini-Workshop: Growth and Expansion in Groups

Abstract

The aim of the workshop was to give a panoramic view of the main lines of research on various aspects of growth and expansion in finite groups. The main topics included: diameter bounds for Cayley graphs of alternating and classical groups, with results for generating sets that can be arbitrary, random, or containing special elements; constructions of expander families of finite simple groups, with the use of property (T); and character bounds for finite simple groups, yielding applications to word map problems and random walks on Cayley graphs. A series of smaller topics explored connections and similarities to different problems in group theory.