Related papers: Left-orderable groups that don't act on the line

A left-order on a group $G$ is a total order $<$ on $G$ such that for any $f$, $g$ and $h$ in $G$ we have $f < g \Leftrightarrow hf < hg$. We construct a finitely generated subgroup $G$ of $\operatorname{Homeo} (I^2;\delta I^2)$, the group…

We construct a finitely presented, infinite, simple group that acts by homeomorphisms on the circle, but does not admit a non-trivial action by $C^1$-diffeomorphisms on the circle. The group emerges as a group of piecewise projective…

We prove the existence of finite groups of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of some closed orientable surface $S$ that act freely and which extends as a group of homeomorphisms of some compact orientable $3$-manifold with boundary $S$,…

The goal of this article is to exhibit two new families of finitely generated simple groups of homeomorphisms of $\mathbf{R}$. These families are strikingly different from existing families owing to the nature of their actions on…

We study actions of groups by homeomorphisms on $\mathbf{R}$ (or an interval) that are minimal, have solvable germs at $\pm \infty$ and contain a pair of elements of a certain type. We call such actions coherent. We establish that such an…

In this work we exhibit flexibility phenomena for some (countable) groups acting by order preserving homeomorphisms of the line. More precisely, we show that if a left orderable group admits an amalgam decomposition of the form…

It is well known that a countable group admits a left-invariant total order if and only if it acts faithfully on R by orientation preserving homeomorphisms. Such group actions are special cases of group actions on simply connected…

The group SL(3,Z) cannot act (faithfully) on the circle (by homeomorphisms). We will see that many other arithmetic groups also cannot act on the circle. The discussion will involve several important topics in group theory, such as ordered…

In [Ann. Math. 190 (2019), 657-661], James Hyde presented the first example of non-left-orderable, finitely generated subgroup of $\mathrm{Homeo}(D,\partial D)$, the group of homeomorphisms of the disk fixing the boundary. This implies that…

We prove that the group $\mathrm{QI}^{+}(\mathbb{R})$ of orientation-preserving quasi-isometries of the real line is a left-orderable, non-simple group, which cannot act effectively on the real line $\mathbb{R}.$

We show that no left-ordering on a free product of (left-orderable) groups is isolated. In particular, we show that the space of left-orderings of free product of finitely generated groups is homeomorphic to the Cantor set. With the same…

Let $M$ be a compact one--manifold, and let $\mathrm{Diff}^{1+\mathrm{bv}}(M)$ denote the group of $C^1$ orientation preserving diffeomorphisms of $M$ whose first derivatives have bounded variation. We prove that if $G$ is a group which is…

We study the group of almost-periodic homeomorphisms of the real line. Our main result states that an action of a finitely generated group on the real line without global fixed point is conjugated to an almost-periodic action without almost…

Let Gamma be a finitely generated, amenable group. Using an idea of E Ghys, we prove that if Gamma has a nontrivial, orientation-preserving action on the real line, then Gamma has an infinite, cyclic quotient. (The converse is obvious.)…

This self-contained paper is part of a series \cite{FF2,FF3} on actions by diffeomorphisms of infinite groups on compact manifolds. The two main results presented here are: 1) Any homomorphism of (almost any) mapping class group or…

We show that certain orderable groups admit no isolated left orders. The groups we consider are cyclic amalgamations of a free group with a general orderable group, the HNN extensions of free groups over cyclic subgroups, and a particular…

We construct examples of finitely generated infinite simple groups of homeomorphisms of the real line. Equivalently, these are examples of finitely generated simple left (or right) orderable groups. This answers a well known open question…

Let M be a compact manifold, possibly with boundary. We show that the group of homeomorphisms of M has the automatic continuity property: any homomorphism from Homeo(M) to any separable group is necessarily continuous. This answers a…

We prove that a dense subgroup of $\mathrm{Homeo}_{+}(I)$ is not elementary amenable. We also show that the topological group $\mathrm{Homeo}_{+}(I)$ does not satisfy the Stability of the Generators Property, moreover, any finitely…

We show that the finitely generated simple left orderable groups $G_{\rho}$ constructed by the first two authors in arXiv:1807.06478 are uniformly perfect - each element in the group can be expressed as a product of three commutators of…