Spectral Independence

Abstract: We prove the spectral gap property for random walks on the product of two non-locally isomorphic analytic real or p-adic compact groups with simple Lie algebras, under the necessary condition that the marginals posses a spectral gap. Furthermore, we give additional control on the spectral gap depending on certain specific properties of the given groups and marginals; in particular, we prove some new cases of the super-approximation conjecture. One ingredient of the proof is a local Ulam stability result which is introduced and proved in this paper. This result characterizes partially defined almost homomorphisms between two analytic compact groups with simple Lie algebras.