Properly discontinuous isometric actions on the unit sphere of infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces (Q1771564)

The author studies which groups act properly discontinuously on the unit spheres of infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces and shows that the situation is quite different from that in the finite dimensional case. The main result is that any group \(H\simeq G\oplus {\mathbb Z}_{p^{\alpha_1}_1}\oplus\cdots\oplus {\mathbb Z}_{p^{\alpha_m}_m}\), where \(G\) is a group without elements of finite order, acts isometrically and properly discontinuously on the unit sphere of \(l_2(G)\) if and only if the \(p_i\) are different primes. Moreover, the author proves that a finite or countable group \(H\) acts isometrically and properly discontinuously on the unit sphere of some separable Hilbert space if and only if \(H\) acts, with the same properties, on the unit sphere of an infinite dimensional Hilbert space with Hilbert bases of arbitrary infinite cardinality.