Let $R$ be a commutative unital ring. Given a finitely-presented affine $R$-group $G$ acting on a finitely-presented $R$-scheme $X$ of finite type, we show that there is a prime $p_0$ so that for any $R$-algebra $k$ which is a field of characteristic $p > p_0$, the centralisers in $G_k$ of all subsets $U subseteq X(k)$ are smooth. We prove this using the Lefschetz principle together with careful application of Gr{o}bner basis techniques.
Let $G$ be a reductive algebraic group over an algebraically closed field and let $V$ be a quasi-projective $G$-variety. We prove that the set of points $vin V$ such that ${rm dim}(G_v)$ is minimal and $G_v$ is reductive is open. We also prove some results on the existence of principal stabilisers in an appropriate sense.
Let $p$ be a prime. Let $R$ be a regular local ring of dimension $dge 2$ whose completion is isomorphic to $C(k)[[x_1,ldots,x_d]]/(h)$, with $C(k)$ a Cohen ring with the same residue field $k$ as $R$ and with $hin C(k)[[x_1,ldots,x_d]]$ such that its reduction modulo $p$ does not belong to the ideal $(x_1^p,ldots,x_d^p)+(x_1,ldots,x_d)^{2p-2}$ of $k[[x_1,ldots,x_d]]$. We extend a result of Vasiu-Zink (for $d=2$) to show that each Barsotti-Tate group over $text{Frac}(R)$ which extends to every local ring of $text{Spec}(R)$ of dimension $1$, extends uniquely to a Barsotti-Tate group over $R$. This result corrects in many cases several errors in the literature. As an application, we get that if $Y$ is a regular integral scheme such that the completion of each local ring of $Y$ of residue characteristic $p$ is a formal power series ring over some complete discrete valuation ring of absolute ramification index $ele p-1$, then each Barsotti-Tate group over the generic point of $Y$ which extends to every local ring of $Y$ of dimension $1$, extends uniquely to a Barsotti-Tate group over $Y$.
We prove an effective variant of the Kazhdan-Margulis theorem generalized to stationary actions of semisimple groups over local fields: the probability that the stabilizer of a random point admits a non-trivial intersection with a small $r$-neighborhood of the identity is at most $beta r^delta$ for some explicit constants $beta, delta > 0$ depending only the group. This is a consequence of a key convolution inequality. We deduce that vanishing at infinity of injectivity radius implies finiteness of volume. Further applications are the compactness of the space of discrete stationary random subgroups and a novel proof of the fact that all lattices in semisimple groups are weakly cocompact.
Let $G$ be a transitive permutation group on a finite set $Omega$ and recall that a base for $G$ is a subset of $Omega$ with trivial pointwise stabiliser. The base size of $G$, denoted $b(G)$, is the minimal size of a base. If $b(G)=2$ then we can study the Saxl graph $Sigma(G)$ of $G$, which has vertex set $Omega$ and two vertices are adjacent if they form a base. This is a vertex-transitive graph, which is conjectured to be connected with diameter at most $2$ when $G$ is primitive. In this paper, we combine probabilistic and computational methods to prove a strong form of this conjecture for all almost simple primitive groups with soluble point stabilisers. In this setting, we also establish best possible lower bounds on the clique and independence numbers of $Sigma(G)$ and we determine the groups with a unique regular suborbit, which can be interpreted in terms of the valency of $Sigma(G)$.
In this paper we study the generic, i.e., typical, behavior of finitely generated subgroups of hyperbolic groups and also the generic behavior of the word problem for amenable groups. We show that a random set of elements of a nonelementary word hyperbolic group is very likely to be a set of free generators for a nicely embedded free subgroup. We also exhibit some finitely presented amenable groups for which the restriction of the word problem is unsolvable on every sufficiently large subset of words.