No Arabic abstract
An action of a group $G$ is highly transitive if $G$ acts transitively on $k$-tuples of distinct points for all $k geq 1$. Many examples of groups with a rich geometric or dynamical action admit highly transitive actions. We prove that if a group $G$ admits a highly transitive action such that $G$ does not contain the subgroup of finitary alternating permutations, and if $H$ is a confined subgroup of $G$, then the action of $H$ remains highly transitive, possibly after discarding finitely many points. This result provides a tool to rule out the existence of highly transitive actions, and to classify highly transitive actions of a given group. We give concrete illustrations of these applications in the realm of groups of dynamical origin. In particular we obtain the first non-trivial classification of highly transitive actions of a finitely generated group.
A subgroup $H$ of a group $G$ is confined if the $G$-orbit of $H$ under conjugation is bounded away from the trivial subgroup in the space $operatorname{Sub}(G)$ of subgroups of $G$. We prove a commutator lemma for confined subgroups. For groups of homeomorphisms, this provides the exact analogue for confined subgroups (hence in particular for URSs) of the classical commutator lemma for normal subgroups: if $G$ is a group of homeomorphisms of a Hausdorff space $X$ and $H$ is a confined subgroup of $G$, then $H$ contains the derived subgroup of the rigid stabilizer of some open subset of $X$. We apply this commutator lemma to the study of URSs and actions on compact spaces of groups acting on rooted trees. We prove a theorem describing the structure of URSs of weakly branch groups and of their non-topologically free minimal actions. Among the applications of these results, we show: 1) if $G$ is a finitely generated branch group, the $G$-action on $partial T$ has the smallest possible orbital growth among all faithful $G$-actions; 2) if $G$ is a finitely generated branch group, then every embedding from $G$ into a group of homeomorphisms of strongly bounded type (e.g. a bounded automaton group) must be spatially realized; 3) if $G$ is a finitely generated weakly branch group, then $G$ does not embed into the group IET of interval exchange transformations.
The transitivity degree of a group $G$ is the supremum of all integers $k$ such that $G$ admits a faithful $k$-transitive action. Few obstructions are known to impose an upper bound on the transitivity degree for infinite groups. The results of this article provide two new classes of groups whose transitivity degree can be computed, as a corollary of a classification of all $3$-transitive actions of these groups. More precisely, suppose that $G$ is a subgroup of the homeomorphism group of the circle $mathsf{Homeo}(mathbb{S}^1)$ or the automorphism group of a tree $mathsf{Aut}(mathbb{T})$. Under natural assumptions on the stabilizers of the action of $G$ on $mathbb{S}^1$ or $partial mathbb{T}$, we use the dynamics of this action to show that every faithful action of $G$ on a set that is at least $3$-transitive must be conjugate to the action of $G$ on one of its orbits in $mathbb{S}^1$ or $partial mathbb{T}$.
We study two transitivity properties for group actions on buildings, called Weyl transitivity and strong transitivity. Following hints by Tits, we give examples involving anisotropic algebraic groups to show that strong transitivity is strictly stronger than Weyl transitivity. A surprising feature of the examples is that strong transitivity holds more often than expected.
Suppose that p is an odd prime and G is a finite group having no normal non-trivial p-subgroup. We show that if a is an automorphism of G of p-power order centralizing a Sylow p-group of G, then a is inner. This answers a conjecture of Gross. An easy corollary is that if p is an odd prime and P is a Sylow p-subgroup of G, then the center of P is contained in the generalized Fitting subgroup of G. We give two proofs both requiring the classification of finite simple groups. For p=2, the result fails but Glauberman in 1968 proved that the square of a is inner. This answered a problem of Kourovka posed in 1999.
Let $Gamma$ be a finitely generated group and $X$ be a minimal compact $Gamma$-space. We assume that the $Gamma$-action is micro-supported, i.e. for every non-empty open subset $U subseteq X$, there is an element of $Gamma$ acting non-trivially on $U$ and trivially on the complement $X setminus U$. We show that, under suitable assumptions, the existence of certain commensurated subgroups in $Gamma$ yields strong restrictions on the dynamics of the $Gamma$-action: the space $X$ has compressible open subsets, and it is an almost $Gamma$-boundary. Those properties yield in turn restrictions on the structure of $Gamma$: $Gamma$ is neither amenable nor residually finite. Among the applications, we show that the (alternating subgroup of the) topological full group associated to a minimal and expansive Cantor action of a finitely generated amenable group has no commensurated subgroups other than the trivial ones. Similarly, every commensurated subgroup of a finitely generated branch group is commensurate to a normal subgroup; the latter assertion relies on an appendix by Dominik Francoeur, and generalizes a result of Phillip Wesolek on finitely generated just-infinite branch groups. Other applications concern discrete groups acting on the circle, and the centralizer lattice of non-discrete totally disconnected locally compact (tdlc) groups. Our results rely, in an essential way, on recent results on the structure of tdlc groups, on the dynamics of their micro-supported actions, and on the notion of uniformly recurrent subgroups.