Liouville property for groups and manifolds (Q1434283)

The author develops a method for estimating the entropy of random walks on groups used, in particular, for obtaining the following result which answers a question by \textit{V. A. Kaimanovich} [Sov. Math., Dokl. 33, 812--816 (1986); translation from Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR 288, 1045--1049 (1986; Zbl 0615.60074)]. There exists a compact Riemannian manifold with an amenable fundamental group, such that its universal cover is non-Liouville (that is it carries non-constant bounded harmonic functions). It is also proved that a finitely generated solvable group admits a symmetric measure with a non-trivial Poisson boundary if and only if this group is not virtually nilpotent. The author gives a series of examples of such amenable groups that any finite entropy non-degenerate measure on them has a non-trivial Poisson boundary. Since the above groups are amenable, they admit also such measures that the corresponding random walks have trivial boundaries. Hence these measures have infinite entropy. The paper ends with a list of open questions about the Poisson boundaries and Liouville property.