Cocycle and orbit equivalence superrigidity for malleable actions of \(w\)-rigid groups (Q2458876)

A countable discrete group \(\Gamma\) is said to be \(w\)-rigid if it contains an infinite normal subgroup \(H\) with the relative property (T) of Kazhdan-Margulis. In the particular case when \(H=\Gamma\), the last property coincides with the usual property (T) of Kazhdan for \(\Gamma\). Let \((P,\tau)\) be a finite von Neumann algebra with a faithful normal finite trace \(\tau\). An action \(\sigma\) of a group \(\Gamma\) on \((P,\tau)\) is said to be \(s\)-malleable if there exist a continuous action \(\alpha:\mathbb{R}\to \text{Aut}(P \otimes P, \tau \otimes \tau)\) and a period 2 automorphism \(\beta \in \text{Aut}(P \otimes P, \tau \otimes \tau)\) such that, if we denote by \(\widetilde{\sigma}\) the diagonal product action \(\widetilde{\sigma_g}=\sigma_g \otimes \sigma_g\) of \(\Gamma\) on \((P \overline{\otimes} P, \tau \otimes \tau)\), then \(\alpha\) commutes with \(\widetilde{\sigma}\) and satisfies: \[ \tau(x\alpha_1(y))=\tau(x)\tau(y)\;\forall x,y \in P;\quad \overline{sp}^\omega P\alpha_1(P)=P \overline{\otimes} P. \] \(\beta \) commutes with \(\widetilde{\sigma}\) and satisfies \[ \beta(x \otimes 1)=x \otimes 1\;\forall x \in P,\quad \beta \alpha_t=\alpha_{-t} \beta\;\forall t\in \mathbb{R}. \] In the present paper, the author proves that if a countable discrete group \(\Gamma\) is \(w\)-rigid and \(\curlyvee\) is a closed subgroup of the group of unitaries of a finite separable von Neumann algebra, then any \(\curlyvee\)-valued measurable cocycle for a measure preserving action \(\Gamma \curvearrowright X\) of \(\Gamma\) on a probability space \((X, \mu)\) which is weakly mixing on \(H\) and \(s\)-malleable is cohomologous to a group morphism of \(\Gamma\) into \(\curlyvee\). The author uses the case when \(\curlyvee\) is discrete of this result to prove that if, in addition, \(\Gamma\) has nontrivial finite normal subgroup, then any orbit equivalence between \(\Gamma \curvearrowright X\) and a free ergodic measure preserving action of a countable group \(\Lambda\) is implemented by a conjugacy of the actions with respect to some group isomorphism \(\Gamma \simeq \Lambda\).