Lie groups as permutation groups: Ulam's problem in the nilpotent case (Q2170269): Difference between revisions

S. Ulam many years ago asked whether every connected Lie group can be represented as a group of permutations of a countable set. Now this is known to be true in the case of linear Lie groups. Here it is established for the first family of nonlinear Lie groups -- it is proved that every nilpotent connected Lie group (some of them are nonlinear) is countably representable. Also it is proved -- as a contrast -- that there exists a nilpotent group \(H\), given by a central extension \(0 \to \mathbb{R} \to H \to \mathbb{R} \to 0\), which is not countably representable. Then it is proved that if the answer to Ulam's problem is affirmative, then every locally compact second countable group is countably representable. Also some other new results are proved and some known results are reproved here. One concrete problem is posed. Let \(G = \mathrm{SL}_n(\mathbb R)\), and let \(\tilde G\) be its universal (two-fold for \(n>2\)) cover. Is \(\tilde G\) countably representable?