Lectures on approximate groups and Hilbert's 5th problem

Abstract

This paper gathers four lectures, based on a mini-course at IMA in 2014, whose aim was to discuss the structure of approximate subgroups of an arbitrary group, following the works of Hrushovski and of Green, Tao and the author. Along the way we discuss the proof of the Gleason-Yamabe theorem on Hilbert's 5th problem about the structure of locally compact groups and explain its relevance to approximate groups. We also present several applications, in particular to uniform diameter bounds for finite groups and to the determination of scaling limits of vertex transitive graphs with large diameter.