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.
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 $\mathsf{Aut}(\mathbb{T})$. …
Let D be a division algebra with center F and degree d>2. Let K|F be any splitting field. We analyze the action of D^\times and SL_1(D) on the spherical and affine buildings that may be associated to GL_d(K) and SL_d(K), and in particular show it is never strongly transitive. In the affine case we find examples where the action is nonetheless Weyl transitive. This extends results of Abramenko and Brown concerning the d=2 case, where strong transitivity is in fact possible. Our approach produces some explicit constructions, and we find that for d>2 the failure of the action to be strongly trans…
We prove that every countable acylindrically hyperbolic group admits a highly transitive action with finite kernel. This theorem uniformly generalizes many previously known results and allows us to answer a question of Garion and Glassner on the existence of highly transitive faithful actions of mapping class groups. It also implies that in various geometric and algebraic settings, the transitivity degree of an infinite group can only take two values, namely $1$ and $\infty$. Here by transitivity degree of a group we mean the supremum of transitivity degrees of its faithful permutation represe…
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 c…
For a finitely generated group $G$ the Nielsen graph $N_n(G)$, $n\geq \operatorname{rank}(G)$, describes the action of the group $\operatorname{Aut}F_n$ of automorphisms of the free group $F_n$ on generating $n$-tuples of G by elementary Nielsen moves. The question of (non)amenability of Nielsen graphs is of particular interest in relation with the open question about Property $(T)$ for $\operatorname{Aut}F_n$, $n\geq 4$. We prove nonamenability of Nielsen graphs $N_n(G)$ for all $n\ge \max\{2,\operatorname{rank}(G)\}$ when $G$ is indicable, and for $n$ big enough when $G$ is elementary amenab…
We show that the only transitive and generically $4$-transitive action of a group of finite Morley rank on a set of Morley rank $2$ is the natural action of $\operatorname{PGL}_3$ on the projective plane.
We establish a sharp sufficient condition for groups acting on trees to be highly transitive when the action on the tree is minimal of general type. This gives new examples of highly transitive groups, including icc non-solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups, thus answering a question of Hull and Osin.
We study some close relationships between the classes of transitive, fully transitive and Krylov transitive torsion-free Abelian groups. In addition, as an application of the achieved assertions, we resolve some oldstanding problems, posed by Krylov-Mikhalev-Tuganbaev in their monograph [17]. Specifically, we answer Problem 44 from there in the affirmative by constructing a Krylov transitive torsion-free Abelian group which is neither fully transitive nor transitive. This extends to the torsion-free case certain similar results in the p-torsion case, obtained by Braun et al. in J. Algebra (201…
We give a partial solution a question of Grigorchuk, Nekrashevych, Sushchanskii and Šunik by giving an algorithm to test whether a finite state element of an infinite iterated (permutational) wreath product $\hat G = \mathbb Z/k\mathbb Z\wr \mathbb Z/k\mathbb Z\wr \mathbb Z/k\mathbb Z\wr >...$ of cyclic groups of order $n$ acts spherically transitively. We can also decide whether two finite state spherically transitive elements of $\hat G$ are conjugate. For general infinite iterated wreath products, an algorithm is presented to determine whether two finite state automorphisms have the same im…
We introduce a notion of quasimorphism between two arbitrary groups, generalizing the classical notion of Ulam. We then define and study the category of homogeneous quasigroups, whose objects are groups and whose morphisms are equivalence classes of quasimorphisms in our sense. We call the automorphism group QOut(G) of a group G in this category the quasioutomorphism group. It acts on the space of real-valued homogeneous quasimorphisms on G extending the natural action of Out(G). We discuss various classes of examples of quasioutomorphisms of free groups. We use these examples to show that the…
We prove that if the group generated by a Mealy automaton acts level-transitively on a regular rooted tree, then the semigroup generated by the dual automaton has exponential growth, hence giving a decision procedure of exponential growth for a restricted family of automaton semigroups.
A hovel is a generalization of the Bruhat-Tits building that is associated to an almost split Kac-Moody group G over a non-Archimedean local field. In particular, G acts strongly transitively on its corresponding hovel $Δ$ as well as on the building at infinity of $Δ$, which is the twin building associated to G. In this paper we study strongly transitive actions of groups that act on affine ordered hovels $Δ$ and give necessary and sufficient conditions such that the strong transitivity of the action on $Δ$ is equivalent to the strong transitivity of the action of the group on its building at …
Let $Ω=\{1,2,...,n\}$ where $n \ge 2$. The {\em shape} of an ordered set partition $P=(P_1,..., P_k)$ of $Ω$ is the integer partition $λ=(λ_1,...,λ_k)$ defined by $λ_i = |P_i|$. Let G be a group of permutations acting on $Ω$. For a fixed partition $λ$ of n, we say that G is {\em $λ$-transitive} if G has only one orbit when acting on partitions P of shape $\la$. A corresponding definition can also be given when G is just a set. For example, if $λ=(n-t,1,...,1)$, then a $λ$-transitive group is the same as a t-transitive permutation group and if $λ=(n-t,t)$, then we recover the t-homogeneous perm…
Definable convolution and idempotent Keisler measures III. Generic stability, generic transitivity, and revised Newelski's conjecture
University of Maryland, College Park(马里兰大学帕克分校);University of California, Los Angeles(加州大学洛杉矶分校);Beijing International Center for Mathematical Research (BICMR) Peking University(北京大学北京国际数学研究中心);Instytut Matematyczny Uniwersytet Wrocławski(弗罗茨瓦夫大学数学研究所)
It is known that the notion of a transitive subgroup of a permutation group $G$ extends naturally to subsets of $G$. We consider subsets of the general linear group $\operatorname{GL}(n,q)$ acting transitively on flag-like structures, which are common generalisations of $t$-dimensional subspaces of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$ and bases of $t$-dimensional subspaces of $\mathbb{F}_q^n$. We give structural characterisations of transitive subsets of $\operatorname{GL}(n,q)$ using the character theory of $\operatorname{GL}(n,q)$ and interprete such subsets as designs in the conjugacy class association scheme …
We show that on the four-symbol full shift, there is a finitely generated subgroup of the automorphism group whose action is (set-theoretically) transitive of all orders on the points of finite support, up to the necessary caveats due to shift-commutation. As a corollary, we obtain that there is a finite set of automorphisms whose centralizer is $\mathbb{Z}$ (the shift group), giving a finitary version of Ryan's theorem (on the four-symbol full shift), suggesting an automorphism group invariant for mixing SFTs. We show that any such set of automorphisms must generate an infinite group, and als…
Let G be a locally compact group acting properly by type-preserving automorphisms on a locally finite thick Euclidean building $Δ$ and K be the stabilizer of a special vertex in $Δ$. It is known that (G, K) is a Gelfand pair as soon as G acts strongly transitively on $Δ$; this is in particular the case when G is a semi-simple algebraic group over a local field. We show a converse to this statement, namely: if (G, K) is a Gelfand pair and G acts cocompactly on $Δ$, then the action is strongly transitive. The proof uses the existence of strongly regular hyperbolic elements in G and their peculia…
We consider groups that act on spherically symmetric rooted trees and study the associated representation of the group on the space of locally constant functions on the boundary of the tree. We introduce and discuss the new notion of locally 2-transitive actions. Assuming local 2-transitivity our main theorem yields a precise decomposition of the boundary representation into irreducible constituents. The method can be used to study Gelfand pairs and enables us to answer a question of Grigorchuk. To provide examples, we analyse in detail the local 2-transitivity of GGS-groups. Moreover, our res…
Firstly, we prove that every closed subgroup $H$ of type-preserving automorphisms of a locally finite thick affine building $Δ$ of dimension $\geq 2$ that acts strongly transitively on $Δ$ is Moufang. If moreover $Δ$ is irreducible and $H$ is topologically simple, we show that $H$ is the subgroup $\G(k)^+$ of the $k$-rational points $\G(k)$ of the isotropic simple algebraic group $\G$ over a non-Archimedean local field $k$ associated with $Δ$. Secondly, we generalise the proof given in \cite{BM00b} for the case of bi-regular trees to any locally finite thick affine building $Δ$, and obtain tha…
We provide a necessary and sufficient condition on an element of a finite Coxeter group to ensure the transitivity of the Hurwitz action on its set of reduced decompositions into products of reflections. We show that this action is transitive if and only if the element is a parabolic quasi-Coxeter element, that is, if and only if it has a reduced decomposition into a product of reflections that generate a parabolic subgroup.
Given a transitive permutation group, a fundamental object for studying its higher transitivity properties is the permutation action of its isotropy subgroup. We reverse this relationship and introduce a universal construction of infinite permutation groups that takes as input a given system of imprimitivity for its isotropy subgroup. This produces vast families kaleidoscopic groups. We investigate their algebraic properties, such as simplicity and oligomorphy; their homological properties, such as acyclicity or contrariwise large Schur multipliers; their topological properties, such as unique…
This paper contains the more significant part of the article with the same title that will appear in the Volume 12 of Journal of Group Theory (2009). In this paper we determine all algebraic transformation groups $G$, defined over an algebraically closed field $\sf k$, which operate transitively, but not primitively, on a variety $Ω$, provided the following conditions are fulfilled. We ask that the (non-effective) action of $G$ on the variety of blocks is sharply 2-transitive, as well as the action on a block $Δ$ of the normalizer $G_Δ$. Also we require sharp transitivity on pairs $(X,Y)$ of i…
In this paper we introduce a Cayley-type graph for group-subgroup pairs and present some elementary properties of such graphs, including connectedness, their degree and partition structure, and vertex-transitivity. We relate these properties to those of the underlying group-subgroup pair. From the properties of the group, subgroup and generating set some of the eigenvalues can be determined, including the largest eigenvalue of the graph. In particular, when this construction results in a bipartite regular graph we show a sufficient condition on the size of the generating sets that results on R…
We construct an infinite tower of covering spaces over the configuration space of $n-1$ distinct non-zero points in the complex plane. This results in an action of the braid group $\mathbb{B}_n$ on the set of $n$-adic integers $\mathbb{Z}_n$ for all natural numbers $n\geq 2$. We study some of the properties of these actions such as continuity and transitivity. The construction of the actions involves a new way of associating to any braid $B$ an infinite sequence of braids, whose braid types are invariants of $B$. We present computations for the cases of $n=2$ and $n=3$ and use these to show th…