We introduce and study the model-theoretic notions of absolute connectedness and type-absolute connectedness for groups. We prove that groups of rational points of split semisimple linear groups (that is, Chevalley groups) over arbitrary infinite fields are absolutely connected and characterize connected Lie groups which are type-absolutely connected. We prove that the class of type-absolutely connected group is exactly the class of discretely topologized groups with the trivial Bohr compactification, that is, the class of minimally almost periodic groups.

We introduce and study model-theoretic connected components of rings as an analogue of model-theoretic connected components of definable groups. We develop their basic theory and use them to describe both the definable and classical Bohr compactifications of rings. We then use model-theoretic connected components to explicitly calculate Bohr compactifications of some classical matrix groups, such as the discrete Heisenberg group ${\mathrm {UT}}_3({\mathbb {Z}})$, the continuous Heisenberg group ${\mathrm {UT}}_3({\mathbb {R}})$, and, more generally, groups of upper unitriangular and invertible upper triangular matrices over unital rings.

We generalise the main theorems from the paper “The Borel cardinality of Lascar strong types” by I. Kaplan, B. Miller and P. Simon to a wider class of bounded invariant equivalence relations. We apply them to describe relationships between fundamental properties of bounded invariant equivalence relations (such as smoothness or type-definability) which also requires finding a series of counterexamples. Finally, we apply the generalisation mentioned above to prove a conjecture from a paper by the first author and J. Gismatullin, showing that the key technical assumption of the main theorem (concerning connected components in definable group extensions) from that paper is not only sufficient but also necessary to obtain the conclusion.