From Quantum Groups to Groups

Abstract: In this paper we use the recent developments in the representation theory of locally compact quantum groups, to assign, to each locally compact quantum group $\mathbb{G}$, a locally compact group $\tilde \mathbb{G}$ which is the quantum version of point-masses, and is an invariant for the latter. We show that "quantum point-masses" can be identified with several other locally compact groups that can be naturally assigned to the quantum group $\mathbb{G}$. This assignment preserves compactness as well as discreteness (hence also finiteness), and for large classes of quantum groups, amenability. We calculate this invariant for some of the most well-known examples of non-classical quantum groups. Also, we show that several structural properties of $\mathbb{G}$ are encoded by $\tilde \mathbb{G}$: the latter, despite being a simpler object, can carry very important information about $\mathbb{G}$.