In their seminal work from the 80’s, Lubotzky, Phillips and Sarnak gave explicit constructions of topological generators for PU(2) with optimal covering properties. In this talk I will describe some recent works that extend the construction of LPS to higher rank compact Lie groups. 

A key ingredient in the work of LPS is the Ramanujan conjecture for U(2), which follows from Deligne's proof of the Ramanujan-Petersson conjecture for GL(2). Unfortunately, the naive generalization of the Ramanujan conjecture is false for higher rank groups. Following a program initiated by Sarnak in the 90's, we prove a density hypothesis and use it as a replacement of the naive Ramanujan conjecture.

This talk is based on some joint works with Ori Parzanchevski and Amitay Kamber.