Right-angled Artin groups, aka partially commutative groups, naturally define an interpolation between free groups and abelian free groups. The mini-course is dedicated to the question: given two right-angled Artin groups, how can we know whether one is isomorphic to a subgroup of the other? Even though this is a basic algebraic question, it remains widely open in full generality. Our goal will be to show how the combinatorial geometry of quasi-median graphs hilights some aspects of this problem. [-]

Given a finite connected undirected graph $X$, its fundamental group plays the role of the absolute Galois group of $X$. The familiar Galois theory holds in this setting. In this talk we shall discuss graph theoretical counter parts of several important theorems for number fields. Topics include
(a) Determination, up to equivalence, of unramified normal covers of $X$ of given degree,
(b) Criteria for Sunada equivalence,
(c) Chebotarev density theorem.
This is a joint work with Hau-Wen Huang.[-]

Given a finite group $G$ and a set $A$ of generators, the diameter diam$(\Gamma(G, A))$ of the Cayley graph $\Gamma(G, A)$ is the smallest $\ell$ such that every element of $G$ can be expressed as a word of length at most $\ell$ in $A \cup A^{-1}$. We are concerned with bounding diam$(G) := max_A$ diam$(\Gamma(G, A))$.
It has long been conjectured that the diameter of the symmetric group of degree $n$ is polynomially bounded in $n$. In 2011, Helfgott and Seress gave a quasipolynomial bound, namely, $O\left (e^{(log n)^{4+\epsilon}}\right )$. We will discuss a recent, much simplified version of the proof.[-]

Excursions are walks which start and end at prescribed locations. In this talk we consider the counting sequences of excursions, more precisely, the functional equations their generating functions satisfy. We focus on two sources of excursion problems: walks defined by their allowable steps, taken on integer lattices restricted to cones; and walks on Cayley graphs with a given set of generators. The latter is related to the cogrowth problems of groups. In both cases we are interested in relating the nature of the generating function (i.e. rational, algebraic, D-finite, etc.) and combinatorial properties of the models. We are also interested in the relation between the excursions, and less restricted families of walks.
Please note: A few corrections were made to the PDF file of this talk, the new version is available at the bottom of the page.[-]