Non-triviality of the Poisson boundary of random walks on the group of Monod

We give sufficient conditions for the non-triviality of the Poisson boundary of random walks on $H(\mathbb{Z})$ and its subgroups. The group $H(\mathbb{Z})$ is the group of piecewise projective homeomorphisms over the integers defined by Monod [Groups of piecewise projective homeomorphisms. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA110(12) (2013), 4524–4527]. For a finitely generated subgroup $H$ of $H(\mathbb{Z})$ , we prove that either $H$ is solvable or every measure on $H$ with finite first moment that generates it as a semigroup has non-trivial Poisson boundary. In particular, we prove the non-triviality of the Poisson boundary of measures on Thompson’s group $F$ that generate it as a semigroup and have finite first moment, which answers a question by Kaimanovich [Thompson’s group $F$ is not Liouville. Groups, Graphs and Random Walks (London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series). Eds. T. Ceccherini-Silberstein, M. Salvatori and E. Sava-Huss. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017, pp. 300–342, 7.A].

Random walks on weakly hyperbolic groups

Let G be a countable group which acts by isometries on a separable, but not necessarily proper, Gromov hyperbolic space X. We say the action of G is weakly hyperbolic if G contains two independent hyperbolic isometries. We show that a random walk on such G converges to the Gromov boundary almost surely. We apply the convergence result to show linear progress and linear growth of translation length, without any assumptions on the moments of the random walk. If the action is acylindrical, and the random walk has finite entropy and finite logarithmic moment, we show that the Gromov boundary with the hitting measure is the Poisson boundary.

Ergodic boundary representations

We prove a von Neumann-type ergodic theorem for averages of unitary operators arising from the Furstenberg–Poisson boundary representation (the quasi-regular representation) of any lattice in a non-compact connected semisimple Lie group with finite center.

The Furstenberg–Poisson boundary and CAT(0) cube complexes

We show under weak hypotheses that $\unicode[STIX]{x2202}X$, the Roller boundary of a finite-dimensional CAT(0) cube complex $X$ is the Furstenberg–Poisson boundary of a sufficiently nice random walk on an acting group $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}$. In particular, we show that if $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}$ admits a non-elementary proper action on $X$, and $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$ is a generating probability measure of finite entropy and finite first logarithmic moment, then there is a $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$-stationary measure on $\unicode[STIX]{x2202}X$ making it the Furstenberg–Poisson boundary for the $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$-random walk on $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}$. We also show that the support is contained in the closure of the regular points. Regular points exhibit strong contracting properties.