Group cocycles and the ring of affiliated operators (Q639839)

The authors study cocycles of discrete countable groups with values in \(\ell^2G\) and the ring of affiliated operators \(\mathcal{U}G\). They clarify properties of the first cohomology of a group \(G\) with coefficients in \(\ell^2 G\) and answer several questions from \textit{Y. de Cornulier, R. Tessera} and \textit{A. Valette} [Transform. Groups 13, No.~1, 125--147 (2008; Zbl 1149.22006)]. Moreover, they obtain strong results about the existence of free subgroups and the subgroup structure, provided the group has a positive first \(\ell^2\)-Betti number. They give numerous applications and examples of groups which satisfy their assumptions.