English

A finitely presented infinite simple group of homeomorphisms of the circle

Group Theory 2019-07-03 v2

Abstract

We construct a finitely presented, infinite, simple group that acts by homeomorphisms on the circle, but does not admit a non-trivial action by C1C^1-diffeomorphisms on the circle. The group emerges as a group of piecewise projective homeomorphisms of S1=R{}S^1=\mathbf{R}\cup \{\infty\}. However, we show that it does not admit a non-trivial action by piecewise linear homeomorphisms of the circle. Another interesting and new feature of this example is that it produces a non amenable orbit equivalence relation with respect to the Lebesgue measure.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.06220,
  title  = {A finitely presented infinite simple group of homeomorphisms of the circle},
  author = {Yash Lodha},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.06220},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

30 pages (Some typos have been corrected and some proofs have been streamlined.)