Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1002.0220

Simple locally compact groups acting on trees and their germs of automorphisms

Pierre-Emmanuel Caprace·Tom De Medts
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Automorphism groups of locally finite trees provide a large class of examples of simple totally disconnected locally compact groups. It is desirable to understand the connections between the global and local structure of such a group. Topologically, the local structure is given by the commensurability class of a vertex stabiliser; on the other hand, the action on the tree suggests that the local structure should correspond to the local action of a stabiliser of a vertex on its neighbours. We study the interplay between these different aspects for the special class of groups satisfying Tits' independence property. We show that such a group has few open subgroups if and only if it acts locally primitively. Moreover, we show that it always admits many germs of automorphisms which do not extend to automorphisms, from which we deduce a negative answer to a question by George Willis. Finally, under suitable assumptions, we compute the full group of germs of automorphisms; in some specific cases, these turn out to be simple and compactly generated, thereby providing a new infinite family of examples which generalise Neretin's group of spheromorphisms. Our methods describe more generally the abstract commensurator group for a large family of self-replicating profinite branch groups.

Explore related subjects

math.GR

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Pierre-Emmanuel Caprace, Tom De Medts. 2011-01-08. Simple locally compact groups acting on trees and their germs of automorphisms. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00031-011-9131-z

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

On commensurators of free groups and free pro-p groups

We study the commensurators of free groups and free pro-$p$ groups, as well as certain subgroups of these. We prove that the commensurator $Comm(F)$ of a non-abelian free group of finite rank $F$ is not virtually simple, answering a question of Lubotzky. On the other hand, we exhibit a family of easy-to-define finitely generated subgroups of $Comm(F)$ and show that some groups in this family are simple. For a prime $p$, we also consider the p-commensurator $Comm_p(F)$, which is the commensurator of $F$ viewed as a group with pro-$p$ topology. By contrast with $Comm(F)$, we prove that $Comm_p(F)$ has a simple subgroup of index at most 2. Further, while the isomorphism class of $Comm(F)$ does not depend on the rank of $F$, we prove that the isomorphism class of $Comm_p(F)$ depends on the rank of $F$ and determine the exact dependency. If $\mathbf F$ is the pro-$p$ completion of $F$ (which is a free pro-$p$ group), $Comm(\mathbf F)$ is a totally disconnected locally compact (tdlc) group containing $\mathbf F$ as an open subgroup. We use $Comm_p(F)$ to construct an abstractly simple subgroup of $Comm(\mathbf F)$ containing $\mathbf F$ as well as a family of non-discrete tdlc groups which are compactly generated and simple.

math.GR↗
arXiv2026

Asymmetry of $\ell^{2}$-cohomology via skewed Følner geometry

We study the two $\ell^{2}$-Dirichlet structures on a countable group $G$ arising from the left and right regular actions on $\mathbb{R}^{G}$. Although the two regular representations are unitarily equivalent, their $\ell^{2}$-Dirichlet subspaces of $\mathbb{R}^{G}$ need not coincide. Our main result gives a complete classification of this asymmetry for countable amenable groups: $$\mathcal{D}_{2}\left(G,λ\right)=\mathcal{D}_{2}\left(G,ρ\right)\quad\Longleftrightarrow\quad G \text{ is an FC-group}.$$ The proof is based on a skewed Følner-geometric mechanism, called a left scheme, combining summability of left boundaries with displacement under a right translation. We develop this mechanism generally, and demonstrate it concretely in the Heisenberg group and amenable wreath products over $\mathbb{Z}$. We also show that this mechanism has a dynamical counterpart in the theory of nonsingular Bernoulli shifts: every countable amenable group that is not an FC-group admits Bernoulli schemes whose left shift is nonsingular, conservative and weakly mixing, whereas the right shift by some element is singular.

math.GR↗
arXiv2026

Analogues of Sylow's first theorem, Cauchy's theorem, and Hall's theorem for skew braces

We establish an unconditional analogue of Sylow's first theorem for finite skew braces, and deduce an analogue of Cauchy's theorem. We also prove an analogue of the existence part of Hall's theorem for finite skew braces with soluble additive and multiplicative groups. We make some observations regarding the number of Sylow subskew braces of a skew brace in various cases. By applying these results we streamline the classification of skew braces of order $ pq $, where $ p,q $ are distinct prime numbers.

math.GR↗