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 automorphism group of a free group into $\Diff_+^r(S^1), r\geq 2$ is trivial. For r=0 Nielsen showed that in many cases nontrivial (even faithful) representations exist. Somewhat weaker results are proven for finite index subgroups.
2) We construct a finitely-presented group of real-analytic diffeomorphisms of $\R$ which is not residually finite.
In this article, we describe all the group morphisms from the group of compactly-supported homeomorphisms isotopic to the identity of a manifold to the group of homeomorphisms of the real line or of the circle.
In this article we construct an expansive homeomorphism of a compact three-dimensional manifold with a fixed point whose local stable set is not locally connected. This homeomorphism is obtained as a topological perturbation of a quasi-Anosov diffeomorphism that is not Anosov.
Let $M$ be a triangulable compact manifold. We prove that, among closed subgroups of $\homeo_{0}(M)$ (the identity component of the group of homeomorphisms of $M$), the subgroup consisting of volume preserving elements is maximal.
Mary Rees has constructed a minimal homeomorphism of the 2-torus with positive topological entropy. This homeomorphism f is obtained by enriching the dynamics of an irrational rotation R. We improve Rees construction, allowing to start with any homeomorphism R instead of an irrational rotation and to control precisely the measurable dynamics of f. This yields in particular the following result: Any compact manifold of dimension d>1 which carries a minimal uniquely ergodic homeomorphism also carries a minimal uniquely ergodic homeomorphism with positive topological entropy. More generally, give…
Rotation vectors, as defined for homeomorphisms of the torus that are isotopic to the identity, are generalized to such homeomorphisms of any complete Riemannian manifold with non-positive sectional curvature. These generalized rotation vectors are shown to exist for almost every orbit of such a dynamical system with respect to any invariant measure with compact support. The concept is then extended to flows and, as an application, it is shown how non-null rotation vectors can be used to construct a measurable semi-conjugacy between a given flow and the geodesic flow of a manifold.
We prove that the family of measured dynamical systems which can be realised as uniquely ergodic minimal homeomorphisms on a given manifold (of dimension at least two) is stable under measured extension. As a corollary, any ergodic system with an irrational eigenvalue is isomorphic to a uniquely ergodic minimal homeomorphism on the two-torus. The proof uses the following improvement of Weiss relative version of Jewett-Krieger theorem: any extension between two ergodic systems is isomorphic to a skew-product on Cantor sets.
The study of the dynamics of a surface homeomorphism in the neighbourhood of an isolated fixed point leads us to the following results. If the fixed point index is greater than 1, a family of attractive and repulsive petals is constructed, generalizing the Leau-Fatou flower theorem in complex dynamics. If the index is less than 1, we get a family of stable and unstable branches, generalizing the stable manifold theorem in hyperbolic dynamics.
We prove the genericity of the shadowing and periodic shadowing properties for both conservative and dissipative homeomorphisms on a compact connected manifold. Our proof is valid for topological manifolds and still holds in the dissipative case. As a consequence of this result, we establish the genericity of the specification property, the average shadowing property and the asymptotic average shadowing property in the conservative case.
In this paper, we study the action of $\text{Homeo}_0(M)$, the identity component of the group of homeomorphisms of an $n$-dimensional manifold $M$ with an $\mathbb{F}_p$-free action, on another manifold $N$ of dimension $n+k<2n$. We prove that if $M$ is not an $\mathbb{F}_p$-homology sphere, then $N\cong M\times K$ for a homology manifold $K$ such that the action of $\text{Homeo}_0(M)$ on $M$ is standard and on $K$ is trivial. In particular, for $M=S^n$ a sphere, any nontrivial action is a generalization of the "coning-off" construction.
We introduce Smale A-homeomorphisms that includes regular, semi-chaotic, chaotic, and super chaotic homeomorphisms of topo\-lo\-gi\-cal $n$-manifold $M^n$, $n\geq 2$. Smale A-homeo\-mor\-p\-hisms contain A-diffeomorphisms (in particular, structurally stable diffeomorphisms) provided $M^n$ admits a smooth structure. Regular A-homeomorphisms contain all Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms, while semi-chaotic and chaotic A-homeomorphisms contain A-diffeo\-mor\-p\-hisms with trivial and nontrivial basic sets. Super chaotic A-homeo\-mor\-p\-hisms contain A-diffeomorphisms whose basic sets are nontrivial. W…
We determine all the normal subgroups of the group of C^r diffeomorphisms of R^n, r = 1,2,...,infinity, except when r=n+1 or n=4, and also of the group of homeomorphisms of R^n (r=0). We also study the group A_0 of diffeomorphisms of an open manifold M that are isotopic to the identity. If M is the interior of a compact manifold with nonempty boundary, then the quotient of A_0 by the normal subgroup of diffeomorphisms that coincide with the identity near to a given end e of M is simple.
Relationships between a chaotic behavior and closely related properties of topological transitivity, sensitivity to initial conditions, density of closed orbits of homeomorphism groups and their countable products are investigated. We construct numerous new examples of chaotic groups of homeomorphisms of countable products of various metrizable topological spaces, including infinite-dimensional topological manifolds, whose factors can be as noncompact surfaces, so triangulable closed manifolds of an arbitrary dimension.
Answering a question of Uspenskij, we prove that if $X$ is a closed manifold of dimension $2$ or higher or the Hilbert cube, then the universal minimal flow of $\mathrm{Homeo}(X)$ is not metrizable. In dimension $3$ or higher, we also show that the minimal $\mathrm{Homeo}(X)$-flow consisting of all maximal, connected chains in $X$ has meager orbits.
Suppose that f and g are Markov surjections, each defined on a wedge of circles, each fixing the branch point and having the branch point as the only critical value. We show that if the points in the inverse limit spaces associated with f and g corresponding to the branch point are distinguished then these inverse limit spaces are homeomorphic if and only if the substitutions associated with f and g are weakly equivalent. This, and related results, are applied to one-dimensional substitution tiling spaces, one-dimensional unstable manifolds of hyperbolic sets, and inverse limits of tent maps w…
For bi-Lipschitz homeomorphisms of a compact manifold it is known that topological entropy is always finite. For compact manifolds of dimension two or greater, we show that in the closure of the space of bi-Lipschitz homeomorphisms, with respect to either the Hölder or the Sobolev topologies, topological entropy is generically infinite. We also prove versions of the $C^1$-Closing Lemma in either of these spaces. Finally, we give examples of homeomorphisms with infinite topological entropy which are Hölder and/or Sobolev of every exponent.
Given closed topological $n$-manifold $M^n$, $n\geq 2$, one introduces the classes of Smale regular $SRH(M^n)$ and Smale semi-regular $SsRH(M^n)$ homeomorphisms of $M^n$ with $SRH(M^n)\subset~SsRH(M^n)$. The class $SRH(M^n)$ contains all Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms, while $SsRH(M^n)$ contains A-diffeomorphisms with trivial and some nontrivial basic sets provided $M^n$ admits a smooth structure. We select invariant sets that determine dynamics of Smale homeomorphisms. This allows us to get necessary and sufficient conditions of conjugacy for $SRH(M^n)$ and $SsRH(M^n)$. We deduce applications fo…
Suppose M is a noncompact connected n-manifold and m is a good Radon measure of M with m(bdry M) = 0. Let H(M; m) denote the group of m-preserving homeomorphisms of M equipped with the compact-open topology and H_E(M; m) denote the subgroup consisting of all h in H(M; m) which fix the ends of M. Each h in H_E(M; m) moves mass toward ends and this quantity is measured by a mass flow homomorphism J : H_E(M; m) -> V_m, where V_m is a topological vector space. We show that the map J has a continuous section. This induces the factorization H_E(M; m) cong Ker J times V_m and implies that Ker J is a …
We give general classification and structure theorems for actions of groups of homeomorphisms and diffeomorphisms on manifolds, reminiscent of classical results for actions of (locally) compact groups. This gives a negative answer to Ghys' "extension problem" for diffeomorphisms of manifolds with boundary, as well as a classification of all homomorphisma $\mathrm{Homeo}_0(M) \to \mathrm{Homeo}_0(N)$ when dim(M) = dim(N) (and related results for diffeomorphisms), and a complete classification of actions of $\mathrm{Homeo}_0(S^1)$ on surfaces. This resolves many problems in a program initiated b…
We show that the topological groups $Diff_{+}^{1}(I)$ and $Diff_{+}^{1}(\mathbb{S}^1)$ of orientation-preserving $C^1$-diffeomorphisms of the interval and the circle, respectively, admit finitely generated dense subgroups. We also investigate the question of genericity (in the sense of Baire category) of such finite topological generating sets in related groups. We show that the generic pair of elements in the homeomorphism group $Homeo_+(I)$ generate a dense subgroup of $Homeo_+(I)$. By contrast, if $M$ is any compact connected manifold with boundary other than the interval, we observe that a…
The Arnold conjecture states that a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism of a closed and connected symplectic manifold must have at least as many fixed points as the minimal number of critical points of a smooth function on the manifold. It is well known that the Arnold conjecture holds for Hamiltonian homeomorphisms of closed symplectic surfaces. The goal of this paper is to provide a counterexample to the Arnold conjecture for Hamiltonian homeomorphisms in dimensions four and higher. More precisely, we prove that every closed and connected symplectic manifold of dimension at least four admits a Hamilt…
Let $M$ be a simply connected closed $4$-manifold. It is proved that any (possibly finite) compact Lie group acting effectively and homologically trivially on $M$ by homeomorphisms is an abelian group of rank at most two. As applications, let $\mathrm{Aut}(F_{n})$ be the automorphism group of the free group of rank $n.$ We prove that any group action of $\mathrm{Aut}% (F_{n})$ $(n\geq 4)$ on $M\neq S^{4}$ by homologically trivial homeomorphisms factors through $\mathbb{Z}/2.$ Moreover, any action of $% \mathrm{SL}_{n}(\mathbb{Q})$ $(n\geq 4)$ on $M\neq S^{4}$ by homeomorphisms is trivial.
We prove that the Nielsen zeta function is a rational function or a radical of a rational function for orientation preserving homeomorphisms on closed orientable 3-dimensional manifolds which are special Haken or Seifert manifolds. In the case of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of surface we compute an asymptotic for the number of twisted conjugacy classes or for the number of Nielsen fixed point classes whose norm is at most $x$.
We study algebraic properties of groups of PL or smooth homeomorphisms of unit cubes in any dimension, fixed pointwise on the boundary, and more generally PL or smooth groups acting on manifolds and fixing pointwise a submanifold of codimension 1 (resp. codimension 2), and show that such groups are locally indicable (resp. circularly orderable). We also give many examples of interesting groups that can act, and discuss some other algebraic constraints that such groups must satisfy, including the fact that a group of PL homeomorphisms of the n-cube (fixed pointwise on the boundary) contains no …
We prove that a compactly supported homeomorphism of a smooth manifold of dimension greater or equal to 5 can be approximated uniformly by compactly supported diffeomorphisms if and only if it is isotopic to a diffeomorphism. If the given homeomorphism is in addition volume preserving, then it can be approximated uniformly by volume preserving diffeomorphisms.
Our first main result states that the spectral norm on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms, introduced in the works of Viterbo, Schwarz and Oh, is continuous with respect to the C^0 topology, when M is symplectically aspherical. This statement was previously proven only in the case of closed surfaces. As a corollary, using a recent result of Kislev and Shelukhin, we obtain C^0 continuity of barcodes on aspherical symplectic manifolds, and furthermore define barcodes for Hamiltonian homeomorphisms. We also present several applications to Hofer geometry and dynamics of Hamiltonian homeomorp…
We obtain a sufficient and necessary condition for a finite group to act effectively on a closed flat manifold. Let \ $G=E_{n}(R)$, $EU_{n}(R,Λ),$ $\mathrm{SAut}(F_{n})$ or $\mathrm{SOut}(F_{n}).$ As applications, we prove that when $n\geq 3$ every group action of $G$ on a closed flat manifold $M^{k}$ ($k<n$) by homeomorphisms is trivial. This confirms a conjecture related to Zimmer's program for flat manifolds. Moreover, it is also proved that the group of homeomorphisms of closed flat manifolds are Jordan with Jordan constants depending only on dimensions.
We show that, in many situations, a homeomorphism $f$ of a manifold $M$ may be recovered from the (marked) isomorphism class of a finitely generated group of homeomorphisms containing $f$. As an application, we relate the notions of {\em critical regularity} and of {\em differentiable rigidity}, give examples of groups of diffeomorphisms of 1-manifolds with strong differential rigidity, and in so doing give an independent, short proof of a recent result of Kim and Koberda that there exist finitely generated groups of $C^α$ diffeomorphisms of a 1-manifold $M$, not embeddable into $\mathrm{Diff}…
We study groups of homeomorphisms of R, each of whose elements have at most one fixed point. In particular we prove that any such group of C^2 diffeomorphisms is topologically conjugate to an affine group.
We construct uncountably many simply connected open 3-manifolds with genus one ends homeomorphic to the Cantor set. Each constructed manifold has the property that any self homeomorphism of the manifold (which necessarily extends to a homeomorphism of the ends) fixes the ends pointwise. These manifolds are complements of rigid generalized Bing-Whitehead (BW) Cantor sets. Previous examples of rigid Cantor sets with simply connected complement in $R^{3}$ had infinite genus and it was an open question as to whether finite genus examples existed. The examples here exhibit the minimum possible genu…
