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The Zariski Topology on Homeomorphism groups

Group Theory 2026-03-23 v2 General Topology

Abstract

The Zariski topology on a group G is the coarsest topology such that all sets of the form {xG1Gg0xk0g1...gl1xkl1gl}\{x \in G | 1_G \neq g_0 x^{k_0} g_1 ... g_{l-1} x^{k_{l-1}} g_l\} are open. Originally introduced by Bryant as the verbal topology, it serves as a fundamental tool for investigating the topological structure of infinite groups and is always a T1T_1 topology with continuous shifts and inversion. Since the Zariski topology is coarser than every Hausdorff group topology on G, it provides a natural starting point for topologizing groups; specifically, for countable or abelian groups, it is known that the Zariski topology coincides with the Markov topology-the intersection of all Hausdorff group topologies on G. In this paper, we analyze the Zariski topology on various homeomorphism groups. We demonstrate that for the Thompson groups F and T, the Zariski (and thus Markov) topology coincides with the standard compact-open topology derived from their respective actions on [0,1][0,1] and S1S^1. In contrast, we show that the Zariski (and thus Markov) topology on Thompson's group V is irreducible, and therefore neither Hausdorff nor a group topology. As V acts highly transitively on each of its orbits, this result stands in notable opposition to a theorem by Banakh et al, which establishes that the Zariski topology on any permutation group containing all finitely supported elements is a Hausdorff group topology. Our results for the Zariski topologies on F,TF,T and VV also apply to the full homeomorphism groups Homeo([0,1])\operatorname{Homeo}([0,1]), Homeo(S1)\operatorname{Homeo}(S^1), and Homeo(2ω)\operatorname{Homeo}(2^\omega) respectively. We conclude by providing a classification of the connected manifolds MM for which the homeomorphism group Homeo(M)\mathrm{Homeo}(M) admits a Hausdorff Zariski topology.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.15185,
  title  = {The Zariski Topology on Homeomorphism groups},
  author = {Luna Elliott},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.15185},
  year   = {2026}
}

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11 pages