Uniform perfectness for interval exchange transformations with or without flips (Q2675330): Difference between revisions

Let \(J=[a,b)\) be a half-open interval. An \textit{interval exchange transformation} (IET) of~\(J\) is a right-continuous bijective map \(f\) of \(J\) onto \(J\) that is defined by translating the elements of a given partition of \(J\) into half-open subintervals. An \textit{interval exchange transformation with flips} (FIET) of \(J\) is a bijective map \(f\) of \(J\) onto \(J\) for which there is a partition \(a=a_1<\ldots<a_{m+1}=b\) of \(J\) such that \(f|_{(a_i,a_{i+1})}\) is a continuous isometry. Let \(\mathcal{G}\) (resp., \(\overline{\mathcal{G}}\)) be the group of all IETs (resp., FIETs). It is known that~\(\overline{\mathcal{G}}\) is simple (non-abelian), so that \(\overline{\mathcal{G}}\) coincides with its derived subgroup. One of the main theorems of the paper proves that every element of \(\overline{\mathcal{G}}\) can be written as product of at most \(6\) commutators (see Theorem 1.3). It is also known that the derived subgroup \(\mathcal{G}_0\) of \(\mathcal{G}\) is simple and the second main result of the paper shows that if there is a positive integer \(n\) for which every element of \(\mathcal{G}_0\) can be written as product of at most~\(n\) commutators (this is called \textit{uniform perfectness}), then one can choose \(n=5\) (see Theorem 1.4). It should be remarked that the proofs are based on an adaptation of a result of \textit{R. K. Dennis} and \textit{L. N. Vaserstein} [\(K\)-Theory 2, No. 6, 761--767 (1989; Zbl 0676.20024)] that gives a criterion for uniform perfectness (see Section 4).