Title: Symbolic coding for geodesic flow in negative curvature
Abstract: Symbolic codings allow us to encode a complicated dynamical system — the geodesic flow — by a simpler model system, thereby proving a number of strong theorems. In this talk I’ll discuss how these codings show up for geodesic flows on negatively curved spaces. Then I will discuss some applications of this coding machinery to problems in geometric group theory, in particular to the amenability problem. This talk is based on joint work with Jean-Francois Lafont and Daniel Thompson.