Smooth perfectness for the group of diffeomorphisms (Q380704): Difference between revisions

Let \(M\) be a smooth manifold of dimension \(n\). By \(Diff^\infty_c(M)\) we denote the group of compactly supported diffeomorphisms of \(M\). This is a regular Lie group in the sense of Kriegl--Michor, modelled on the convenient vector space \(\mathfrak X_c(M)\) of compactly supported smooth vector fields on \(M\). If \(M\) is compact, this smooth structure coincides with the well known Fréchet--Lie group structure on \(Diff^\infty(M)\). The aim of this paper is to provide a new elementary proof of the fact that the connected component of the group of compactly supported diffeomorphisms is perfect and hence simple. Moreover, the authors show that every diffeomorphism \(g\), which is sufficiently close to the identity, can be represented as a product of four commutators, \(g=[h_1,k_1]\circ\dots\circ[h_4,k_4]\), where the factors \(h_i\) and \(k_i\) can be chosen to depend smoothly on \(g\). The authors use the following of Herman's result: There exist smooth vector fields \(X_1,X_2,X_3\) on torus \(T^n\) so that the smooth map \(Diff^\infty(T^n)^3\to Diff^\infty(T^n)\), \[ (g_1,g_2,g_3)\mapsto[g_1,\exp(X_1)]\circ[g_2,\exp(X_2)]\circ[g_3,\exp(X_3)], \] admits a smooth local right inverse at the identity. Moreover, the vector fields \(X_i\) may be chosen arbitrarily close to zero with respect to the Whitney \(C^\infty\)-topology. Here \(\exp(X)\) denotes the flow of a complete vector field \(X\) at time \(1\), and \([k,h]:=k\circ h\circ k^{-1}\circ h^{-1}\) denotes the commutator of two diffeomorphisms \(k\) and \(h\).