Master thesis topics Functional Analysis 2021-2022

The Functional Analysis research group proposes several master thesis topics for the year 2021-
2022. Each of the topics is open to one student and has a different master thesis supervisor.
Potentially interested students can contact this supervisor for more information on the topic.

KMS states on graph C ∗ -algebras

Supervisor: Johannes Christensen, johannes.christensen@kuleuven.be

Prerequisites: It is important that any candidate has followed the courses Spectral Theory &
Operator Algebras, Probability & Measure and Complex Analysis.

A master’s student with an interest in Functional Analysis might very likely have come across
the concept of an Operator Algebra. Operator Algebras were in part introduced to construct
a mathematical formalism for quantum statistical mechanics. One approach to build a model
of a system in quantum statistical mechanics is to describe the observables of the system by a
C ∗ -algebra A. The dynamical evolution of the system is then described by something called
a one-parameter group {αt }t∈R of automorphisms of the C ∗ -algebra. Such a pair (A, {αt }t∈R )
is called a C ∗ -dynamical system. When using a C ∗ -dynamical system to model a system in
quantum statistical mechanics, the β-KMS states for the system (A, {αt }t∈R ) and a β ∈ R are
naturally interpreted as the equilibrium states at inverse temperature β of the modelled system.
Albeit having their origin in quantum statistical mechanics, the KMS states have turned out
to be such an interesting invariant of the C ∗ -dynamical system under consideration, that a lot
of the literature on KMS states is motivated by purely mathematical questions, and has no
connection to physics. In particular, no knowledge about (or interest in) physics is required to
do the project described below.

One class of C ∗ -dynamical systems that has been studied intensely arises from graph C ∗ -
algebras. Given a directed graph, one can define an associated graph C ∗ -algebra, which is a
C ∗ -algebra that in a certain sense encodes the information of the graph. Graph C ∗ -algebras
have the remarkable property, that a lot of the structure of the C ∗ -algebra can be determined
by properties of the underlying graph. By weighing the edges in the graph, one can define
a one parameter group called a generalised gauge-action on a graph C ∗ -algebra, and thereby
one obtains a natural C ∗ -dynamical system. If all edges gets the weight 1, one obtain the
gauge-action on a graph C ∗ -algebra.
The question of describing KMS states for such C ∗ -dynamical systems arising from graph
C ∗ -algebras has been studied intensely. As for many other concepts from the realm of C ∗ -
algebras, it turns out that one can describe the structure of the KMS states on the C ∗ -algebra
of a directed graph by properties of the underlying graph, which makes graph C ∗ -algebras an
excellent source of examples.
The project I propose for a master thesis is to describe KMS states on C ∗ -algebras of finite
graphs and for the one-parameter groups called generalized gauge-actions. The student is first
suppose to study the following material:

(1) States on C ∗ -algebras and C ∗ -dynamical systems,

(2) KMS states on C ∗ -algebras,

 (3) Perron Frobenius theory,

(4) Graph C ∗ -algebras, their uniqueness theorems and the classification of their gauge-
invariant ideals.

The plan is to primarily use [BR] for ()-(), [S] for () and [R, RPMN] for ().

After the student has acquired the necessary background knowledge listed above, the student
will turn to the description of KMS states on graph C ∗ -algebras. In the paper [aHLRS] the
KMS states for the gauge-action on a finite graph are described using primarily the theory
introduced above. In the paper [CT], the KMS states for the generalised gauge-actions on
a finite graph are described. There is one class of KMS states in [CT] which is described
by realising the graph C ∗ -algebra as a so-called groupoid C ∗ -algebra, and then using a very
deep theorem developed for the description of KMS states on groupoid C ∗ -algebras. This is
somewhat unsatisfactory, since the analysis for the gauge-action in [aHLRS] does not leave
the realm of graph C ∗ -algebra theory. The second more advanced part of the master thesis is
therefore to

(5) understand the papers [aHLRS, aHLRS2, CT],

(6) use the ideas developed in [aHLRS] to try to describe all KMS states in the setup in [CT]
using only tools and ideas from the theory of graph C ∗ -algebras.

References

[BR] O. Bratteli and D.W. Robinson, Operator Algebras and Quantum Statistical Me-
chanics I + II, Texts and Monographs in Physics, Springer Verlag, New York,
Heidelberg, Berlin, 1979 and 1981.

[CT] J. Christensen, K. Thomsen, Finite digraphs and KMS states, Journal of Mathe-
matical Analysis and Applications, 433, (2016) ,1626-1646.

[aHLRS] A. an Huef, M. Laca, I. Raeburn, A. Sims,KMS states on the C ∗ -algebras of re-

ducible graphs, Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems, 35, (2015), 2535-2558.

[aHLRS2] A. an Huef, M. Laca, I. Raeburn, A. Sims,KMS states on the C ∗ -algebras of finite

graphs, Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, 405, (2013), 388-399.

[R] I. Raeburn, Graph algebras, CBMS Regional Conference Series in Mathematics,

103. Published for the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, Washing-
ton, DC; by the American Mathematical Society, Providence, (2005). vi+113 pp

[RPMN] I. Raeburn,G. Pino and Mercedes Siles Molina and Francesc Perera, Graph alge-
bras: bridging the gap between analysis and algebra, Servicio de Publicaciones de la
Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, Spain, (2006).

[S] E. Seneta, Non-Negative Matrices and Markov Chains, second edition, Springer
Verlag, New york, 1981.
Unique prime factorization for von Neumann algebras

Supervisor: Daniel Drimbe, daniel.drimbe@kuleuven.be

Prerequisites: It is essential to follow in the same year 2021-2022 or to have followed in
previous years the courses Functional Analysis and Spectral Theory & Operator Algebras.

Von Neumann algebras are ∗-algebras on a Hilbert space that are closed in the weak operator
topology and these objects arise naturally from groups and their actions. Specifically, any
countable group Γ and any probability measure preserving action Γ y (X, µ) give rise to von
Neumann algebras, denoted L(Γ) and L∞ (X) o Γ, respectively. If Γ has infinite conjugacy
classes (icc) and Γ y (X, µ) is ergodic, then the associated von Neumann algebras are II1
factors (i.e. infinite dimensional von Neumann that admit a sufficiently nice trace).
An important theme in operator algebras is the study of tensor product decompositions of II1
factors. A II1 factor is called prime if it cannot be decomposed as a tensor product of II1
factors. To provide some examples, any icc non-amenable hyperbolic group Γ (e.g. Γ = Fn for
n ≥ 2) give rise to a prime von Neumann algebra L(Γ) [Oz03]. Moreover, Ozawa and Popa
discovered in [OP03] that there exists the following unique prime factorization phenomenon
in the framework of II1 factors: if Γ1 , . . . , Γn are icc non-amenable hyperbolic groups such
that L(Γ1 )⊗ ¯ . . . ⊗L(Γ
¯ ∼ ¯ 2 for some II1 factors P1 , P2 , then there exists a partition
n ) = P1 ⊗P
{1, . . . , n} = I1 ∪ I2 such that ⊗ ¯ k∈I1 L(Γk ) ∼ ¯ k∈I2 L(Γk ) ∼
= P1 and ⊗ = P2 . Here, we denoted by ∼
=
the notion of stably isomorphism.
Most of the primeness and unique prime factorization results arise from groups Γ that are
either a hyperbolic group (or a lattice in a rank one Lie group) or satisfies a certain algebraic
assumption (e.g. Γ is a free product group or a wreath product group). Recently, it has been
shown in [IM19] that if Γ is a higher rank lattice (e.g. Γ = SLn (Z), for n ≥ 3) and Γ y (X, µ)
is a compact (e.g. profinite) action, then L∞ (X) o Γ is prime and for any finite family of
von Neumann algebras M1 , . . . , Mn of this form, the tensor product M1 ⊗¯ . . . ⊗M
¯ n satisfies the
above unique prime factorization property.
The first goal of this master thesis is to become familiar with Popa’s intertwining-by-bimodules
technique (will be learned from [AP21]) and to understand the approach from [IM19] for proving
unique prime factorization results. The second goal would be to use these tools in order to
produce new examples of unique prime factorization results; this includes an extension of the
result of [OP03] mentioned above to arbitrary icc non-amenable bi-exact groups.

References
[AP21] C. Anantharaman and S. Popa: An introduction to II1 factors, book in preparation, available
on Sorin Popa’s website: https://www.math.ucla.edu/ popa/Books/IIunV15.pdf.
[IM19] Y. Isono, A. Marrakchi: Tensor product decompositions and rigidity of full factors, to appear
in Ann. Sci. Ec. Norm. Super.
[OP03] N. Ozawa, S. Popa: Some prime factorization results for type II1 factors, Invent. Math. 156
(2004), no. 2, 223-234.
[Oz03] N. Ozawa: Solid von Neumann algebras, Acta Math. 192 (2004), no. 1, 111-117.
Regularity properties of box spaces

Supervisor: Damian Sawicki, damian.sawicki@kuleuven.be

Prerequisites: Good familiarity with the fundamental notions at the Bachelor level — graphs,
metric spaces, the norm on the Hilbert space of square-summable sequences `2 , and groups — is
expected. Some basic familiarity with the covering theory (included in particular in the course
Algebraic Topology) can be useful in the first part of the project. The knowledge from courses
like Functional Analysis, Operator Algebras, or Group Theory may provide extra context and
motivation, but it is definitely not needed to understand or solve the proposed problems.

The subject of this topic is the study of functional analytic properties of infinite
families of finite graphs. A coarse embedding is a map f : X → Y between metric spaces,
such that
lim d(xn , x0n ) = ∞ ⇐⇒ lim d(f (xn ), f (x0n )) = ∞. (1)
for any sequences (xn ) and (x0n ) in X. Note that if we replace infinities with zeroes in (1), we
obtain a condition equivalent to the fact that f is a uniformly continuous injective map whose
inverse f −1 : f (X) → X is also uniformly continuous. Coarse embeddings are analogues of such
bi-uniformly-continuous embeddings when one shifts the perspective from small distances to
large distances.
Such a shift of perspective has proved very useful, and the corresponding area of mathematics
is known as coarse geometry. For example, if a metric space X admits a coarse embedding into
the Hilbert space `2 (there are generalisations for other classes of Banach spaces as well), then
X satisfies the coarse Baum–Connes conjecture, and if X happens to be the Cayley graph of
a discrete group Γ, then the injectivity part of the Baum–Connes conjecture follows for the
C*-algebra Cr∗ (Γ).
In the first part of the project, within the literature study the student will understand
the construction of graphs from [1] and the construction of a coarse embedding of them into
`2 . In addition to the group-theoretic approach of [1], you can also consult the pure graph-
theoretic exposition of the same construction in [9]. Both articles [1, 9] do not exceed 15 pages.
The virtue of these examples is that they solved two interesting open problems. First, it was
not known whether property A introduced in the celebrated work [10] is equivalent to coarse
embeddability into a Hilbert space: these examples show that the equivalence does not hold
even for families of finite graphs with a fixed degree of all vertices, and the construction of [1]
was later improved to obtain similar counterexamples among groups [8]1 . Second, these graphs
have girth (the length of the shortest cycle) going to infinity, and the main result of [7]2 stated
that such families of graphs never admit bi-Lipschitz embeddings into `2 , but the case of `1
remained open: [9] showed that in the latter case bi-Lipschitz embeddings do exist.
The original research in the first part of the project is related to the generalisation of [1]
in [6]. The heart of the construction in [1, 6, 9] takes as its input a graph G and returns another
graph G0 that is “easier” to coarsely embed into the Hilbert space, or, in the group-theoretic
approach, takes a finite group Γ and constructs another group Γ0 with certain properties. The
goal would be to generalise the construction by extending the range of allowed parameters
(constants k and ki below) describing how G0 or Γ0 are related to G or Γ.
1
These groups Γ have the property that their reduced C*-algebra Cr∗ (Γ) is not exact yet has the Haagerup
approximation property.
2
A more ambitious student may also include some proofs from [7] in their Master’s thesis. This article also
does not exceed 15 pages, but it uses slightly less fundamental concepts like Markov chains and positive-definite
matrices.
More specifically, in [1, 9] one has V (G0 ) = V (G) × {0, 1}n for a certain n = n(G) (note that
{0, 1}n embeds into Rn in the obvious way), or, in the group-theoretic language, there is a
short exact sequence (Z/2Z)n → Γ0 → Γ. In [6], the analogous result was proved with (Z/2Z)n
replaced with (Z/kZ)n for any fixed (i.e. not depending on G) integer k ≥ 2, but the proof is
not yet optimal. Your goal would be to improve the proof in order to replace (Z/kZ)n with
Q n
i=1 Z/ki Z for arbitrary integers ki ≥ 2 that may also vary with the graph G. Possibly, not
only the construction from [6] of coarse embeddings into `2 can be generalised, but also the
construction from [9] of bi-Lipschitz embeddings into `1 .

The second part of the project is devoted to asymptotic dimension. Just like coarse em-
beddings from the first part are analogues of bi-uniformly-continuous embeddings, asymptotic
dimension is the large-distance analogue of topological dimension (which generalises the usual
notions of dimension for manifolds or linear spaces over the reals to the setting of topological
spaces).
Within the literature study the student will understand the work [3] showing that box
spaces of virtually nilpotent groups have finite asymptotic dimension. Roughly speaking, a box
space is a metric space consisting of Cayley graphs of finite quotients of an infinite discrete
group Γ, and a group is virtually nilpotent if it has a finite-index subgroup that is nilpotent.
A Cayley graph Cay(Γ, S) for a group Γ and a subset S ⊆ Γ has Γ as its vertex set and {γ, γ 0 }
is an edge if γ = γ 0 s or γ 0 = γs for some s ∈ S (please think how Cay(Z, {1}) looks like to get
some grasp of the definition).
The abovementioned result has been claimed in the preprint [5], but it turned out that there
is a gap in the reasoning of [5]. Later, a very short geometric proof was given in [3]. Instead
of relying on the structure of nilpotent groups, it uses the famous fact that such groups have
polynomial growth, i.e. the cardinality of balls in their Cayley graphs are bounded by a poly-
nomial in the radius. A more comprehensive understanding will require familiarising oneself
with some fundamental results on asymptotic dimension (for example from [2]) and possibly
with the work [4] calculating the asymptotic dimension of virtually nilpotent groups.
The goal of the student’s original research is to choose a box space of some virtually
nilpotent group and to explicitly describe coverings certifying that it has finite asymptotic
dimension. One possible choice of such a group is the Heisenberg group H consisting of the
following 3 by 3 matrices   
 1 a c 
H = 0 1 b  a, b, c ∈ Z .
0 0 1
 

It follows from [3,4] that the asymptotic dimension asdim X of every box space X of H equals 3.
Perhaps, it may be possible to extract from the proofs in [3, 4] explicit coverings showing that
asdim X ≤ 3, but it will be absolutely satisfactory to describe coverings yielding an upper bound
asdim X ≤ k for some k ∈ N (in fact, [3] first proves finiteness of the asymptotic dimension,
and then finds its precise value by applying to [4] a certain general result). This should be
very hands-on and require the understanding of the multiplication in this very explicit matrix
group rather than learning some abstract theory.

Two parts of the topic are closely related: they both concern metric properties of box spaces
(this has not been mentioned above, but the family of graphs from [1] is a box space of the
free group F2 ). Furthermore, the finiteness of asymptotic dimension (to be proved in the
second part for box spaces of virtually nilpotent groups) implies property A mentioned in the
description of the first part, which in turn implies coarse embeddability into the Hilbert space
(to be proved in the first part for a specific box space of the free group; this box space has
neither finite asymptotic dimension nor property A). This gives the interested student quite of
a good overview of the most fundamental regularity conditions considered in coarse geometry,
but also requires absorbing many new ideas despite the formal brevity of the referenced articles.

References
[1] G. Arzhantseva, E. Guentner, and J. Špakula, Coarse non-amenability and coarse embeddings, Geom. Funct.
Anal. 22 (2012), no. 1, 22–36, DOI 10.1007/s00039-012-0145-z. MR2899681
[2] G. Bell and A. Dranishnikov, On asymptotic dimension of groups, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 1 (2001), 57–71,
DOI 10.2140/agt.2001.1.57. MR1808331
[3] T. Delabie and M. C. H. Tointon, The asymptotic dimension of box spaces of virtually nilpotent groups,
Discrete Math. 341 (2018), no. 4, 1036–1040, DOI 10.1016/j.disc.2017.12.009. MR3764351
[4] A. Dranishnikov and J. Smith, Asymptotic dimension of discrete groups, Fund. Math. 189 (2006), no. 1,
27–34, DOI 10.4064/fm189-1-2. MR2213160
[5] M. Finn-Sell and J. Wu, The Asymptotic Dimension of Box Spaces for Elementary Amenable Groups (2015),
available at arXiv:1508.05018.
[6] A. Khukhro, Embeddable box spaces of free groups, Math. Ann. 360 (2014), no. 1-2, 53–66, DOI
10.1007/s00208-014-1029-3. MR3263158
[7] N. Linial, A. Magen, and A. Naor, Girth and Euclidean distortion, Geom. Funct. Anal. 12 (2002), no. 2,
380–394, DOI 10.1007/s00039-002-8251-y. MR1911665
[8] D. Osajda, Small cancellation labellings of some infinite graphs and applications, Acta Math. 225 (2020),
no. 1, 159–191, DOI 10.4310/acta.2020.v225.n1.a3. MR4176066
[9] M. I. Ostrovskii, Low-distortion embeddings of graphs with large girth, J. Funct. Anal. 262 (2012), no. 8,
3548–3555. MR2889167
[10] G. Yu, The coarse Baum-Connes conjecture for spaces which admit a uniform embedding into Hilbert space,
Invent. Math. 139 (2000), no. 1, 201–240, DOI 10.1007/s002229900032. MR1728880
A simplified approach toward Ocneanu’s theorem

Supervisor: Gábor Szabó, gabor.szabo@kuleuven.be

Prerequisites: It is essential to have followed the courses Functional Analysis and Operator
Algebras.

In the classification theory for group actions on operator algebras and more specifically von
Neumann algebras, a seminal milestone is given by Oceanu’s theorem [3]:

Theorem: (Ocneanu) Let R be the hyperfinite II1 -factor. Let G be a countable amenable
group. Then up to cocycle conjugacy, there is a unique outer action G y R.

Not only does his theorem provide a remarkable rigidity property for amenable groups, but
a few years later it was proved by Jones [1] that the conclusion of Ocneanu’s theorem can
only hold if the group G was amenable to begin with. The theorem subsequently led to many
generalizations of itself which are still important in contemporary research.
Let us briefly explain some involved concepts. A factor is a von Neumann algebra M that
cannot be decomposed as a proper direct sum of two other ones. A so-called II1 -factor is an
infinite-dimensional factor M that admits a (necessarily unique and faithful) tracial state τ :
M → C. A II1 -factor M is called hyperfinite, if there is an increasing sequence Fn ⊆ Fn+1 ⊆ M
of finite-dimensional subalgebras whose union is dense in the weak operator topology. In their
seminal work that founded the subject of operator algebras, Murray and von Neumann already
proved that there is a unique hyperfinite II1 -factor up to isomorphism. It can for example be
N¯
constructed as the infinite tensor product of 2 × 2 matrices R = N M2 within the category of
tracial von Neumann algebras.
On the other hand, the concept of an action α : G y M means that there is a group homomor-
phism into the automorphism group α : G → Aut(M ). Two actions on M are called conjugate
if there is an automorphism on M that transforms one action into the other, whereas cocycle
conjugacy is a slightly weaker but more useful equivalence relation. In a nutshell, it says that
there only has to be an automorphism that transforms one action into the other modulo a
1-cocycle. An automorphism γ ∈ Aut(M ) is called outer if it is not of the form [x 7→ wxw∗ ]
for some unitary element w ∈ M . An action α is called outer, if αg is outer whenever g 6= 1.
Indeed, if two actions are cocycle conjugate and one of them is outer, then so is the other
one, which explains why it is natural to assume outerness to have the conclusion in Ocneanu’s
theorem.

Especially from today’s point of view, the original proof of Ocneanu is much more complicated
than it needs to be. There are a couple of more recent simplifications [2], but they are still
somewhat long and technical in certain steps. The point of this thesis topic is to find a proof
of Ocneanu’s theorem that is in part new and significantly shorter compared to the literature
proof. The key new element would be to utilize (an analog of) strong self-absorption as an
intermediate concept, which so far has only been seriously studied for group actions on C∗ -
algebras [4]. An outline on how to approach this challenge in more detail will be provided. A
very strong student may also work on various natural follow-up problems that can be considered
as an extension of the above, but that is not a requirement to pursue this topic.

References
[1] V.F.R. Jones: A converse to Ocneanu’s theorem. J. Operator Th. 10 (1983), pp. 61–63.
[2] T. Masuda: Unified approach to the classification of actions of discrete amenable groups on injective
factors. J. reine angew. Math. 683 (2013), pp. 1–47.
[3] A. Ocneanu: Actions of discrete amenable groups on von Neumann algebras. Lecture Notes Math.
1138 (1985).
[4] G. Szabó: Strongly self-absorbing C∗ -dynamical systems. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370 (2018), pp.
99–130.
Gaussian probability spaces and ergodicity of skew products

Supervisor: Stefaan Vaes, stefaan.vaes@kuleuven.be

Prerequisites: It is essential to have followed the courses Probability and Measure, and Func-
tional Analysis. It is helpful to also have followed or follow Spectral Theory and Operator
Algebras, but this is not essential.

The standard Gaussian probability measure µ on Rn has the property that for every vector
ξ ∈ Rn , the random variable x 7→ hx, ξi has a Gaussian distribution with mean zero and
variance kξk2 . We use here the standard inner product on Rn and can view Rn as a finite
dimensional real Hilbert space.
When HR is an infinite dimensional real Hilbert space, there similarly exists a canonical proba-
bility space (X, µ) and for every ξ ∈ HR a random variable, suggestively denoted as x 7→ hx, ξi,
with a centered Gaussian distribution with variance kξk2 . To get some intuition, it is good
to think of X as being HR , so that µ is a probability measure on the Hilbert space and the
random variables are really given by the scalar product. In reality, X is larger than HR and
HR is a set of measure zero.
These Gaussian probability spaces are of crucial importance in many areas of mathematics and
mathematical physics. There are several books on the subject, see e.g. [Bog98] and [Jan97].
The construction HR 7→ (X, µ) is “functorial” in the sense that every “transformation respect-
ing the structure of HR ” gives rise to a “transformation respecting the structure of (X, µ)”.
More precisely, to every orthogonal transformation u ∈ O(HR ) corresponds an essentially
unique measure preserving transformation αu : X → X. This brings us in the realm of er-
godic theory: the study of measurable transformations of a probability space. These Gaussian
transformations form a rich and extremely well studied family of transformations.
A transformation T : X → X of a measure space is called ergodic if every T -invariant subset
has either measure zero or a complement of measure zero. For instance, one can prove that the
Gaussian transformation αu is ergodic if and only if the orthogonal transformation u ∈ O(HR )
has no nontrivial finite dimensional invariant subspace. Such a u ∈ O(HR ) is said to be weakly
mixing.
The main focus of this master thesis topic is on skew products of Gaussian transformations,
defined as follows. Given u ∈ O(HR ) and ξ ∈ HR , we consider the transformation

T : X × R → X × R : T (x, s) = (αu (x), s + hx, ξi) .

The transformation T preserves the product µ × λ of the Gaussian probability measure µ on

X and the Lebesgue measure λ on R.
It was conjectured in [LLS99] that T is ergodic if and only if u is weakly mixing and ξ is not a
co-boundary: there is no η ∈ HR such that ξ = uη − η.
The goal of this master thesis is to make the following progress1 towards proving this conjecture,
as well as variants of the conjecture for more general group actions induced by orthogonal
representations π : Γ → O(HR ) and 1-cocycles c : Γ → HR (with the above case corresponding
to Γ = Z, π(1) = u and c(1) = ξ).

1. It was proven in [MV20, Theorem 9.1] that the skew product is ergodic if π is mixing (which
is a stronger notion than weak mixing), c is not a coboundary and the group Γ contains a
1
It is not forbidden to prove the conjecture in its full generality or to provide a counterexample. This would
make the supervisor of this master thesis very happy.
 copy of Z. It was proven in [DL20, Theorem 0.1] that for the group Z, the transformation is
ergodic if ξ is not a coboundary and u is mildly mixing (which is a stronger notion than weak
mixing, but a weaker notion than mixing). The first goal is to combine both approaches into
a general ergodicity result for Gaussian skew products and mildly mixing π : Γ → O(HR ).

2. Transporting the methods of [MV20, Theorem 7.1] to the context of Gaussian skew products,
should allow to prove ergodicity of the skew product when the rate of weak mixing is faster
than the growth of the cocycle. This will be the second goal of the master thesis.

3. Throughout, it would be useful to illustrate all variants of mixing and all variants of growth
types of cocycles with examples and counterexamples.

4. After the previous points, the student will have entered a world with several open questions
– small and big – which (s)he may want to tackle.

References
[Bog98] V.I. Bogachev, Gaussian measures. Mathematical Surveys and Monographs 62. American
Mathematical Society, Providence, 1998.
[DL20] A.I. Danilenko and M. Lemańczyk, Ergodic cocycles of IDPFT systems and nonsingular
Gaussian actions. Preprint. arXiv:2006.08567
[Jan97] S. Janson, Gaussian Hilbert spaces. Cambridge Tracts in Mathematics 129, Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge, 1997.
[LLS99] M. Lemańczyk, E. Lesigne and D. Skrenty, Multiplicative Gaussian cocycles. Aequationes
Math. 61 (2001), 162-178.
[MV20] A. Marrakchi and S. Vaes, Nonsingular Gaussian actions: beyond the mixing case. Preprint.
arXiv:2006.07238