Proper homotopy theory of large spaces and isomorphism conjectures
by
Boris Goldfarb
Stanford University

Assembly maps are ways to combine information about a group G and a ring R into information about the group ring R[G]. The question of when they are isomorphisms is of importance in algebra and topology where the ring is usually the integers. An early observation in the study of assembly was that the answer often depends on the large scale or asymptotic properties of G. I will show how these properties can be incorporated into various algebraic and topological constructions and use them to describe recent work on assembly maps which applies to many groups from geometry and geometric group theory.

Date received: April 16, 1998