Fixed point-free isometric actions of topological groups on Banach spaces (Q961973)

Property \((T)\) introduced by \textit{D. Kazhdan} in [Funct. Anal. Appl. 1, 63--65 (1967; Zbl 0168.27602)] has found numerous applications to a large variety of topics, including Lie groups, operator algebras, ergodic theory and combinatorics. For \(\sigma\)-compact locally compact groups property \((T)\) is equivalent to property \((FH)\), where a topological group \(G\) is said to have property \((FH)\) if every continuous action of \(G\) by affine isometries on a Hilbert space has a fixed point. While the implication \((T)\Rightarrow (FH)\) holds for every topological group, the converse implication fails to be true even in the class of uncountable discrete groups or in the class of Polish (not necessarily locally compact) topological groups. The aim of this paper is to study a stronger version of property \((FH)\) obtained by allowing affine actions of arbitrary topological groups on arbitrary Banach spaces. The authors prove that every topological group that is not precompact admits a continuous affine action by isometries on a Banach space without fixed points. Since every affine action of a precompact group by isometries on a Banach space has a fixed point, the version of property \((FH)\) used in this paper characterizes precompactness. For separable topological groups, the authors show that it is enough to consider affine actions on one particular Banach space: the Holmes space. Moreover, the authors prove that Polish groups need not admit topologically proper affine isometric actions on Banach spaces.