Minimal actions of the group \(\mathbb{S}(\mathbb{Z})\) of permutations of the integers (Q1865762)

The article under review contributes very considerably towards understanding the dynamical properties of the infinite symmetric group \(S_{\infty}\), equipped with its unique Polish group topology. It was shown by the present reviewer [\textit{V. G. Pestov}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 350, 4149-4165 (1998; Zbl 0911.54034)] that the group \(S_\infty\) admits a fixed-point free continuous action on a compact space (this responds to a question by Furstenberg discussed in the paper of \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{V. D. Milman} [Am. J. Math. 105, 843-854 (1983; Zbl 0522.53039)]). The paper under review exhibits a large collection of explicitly constructed minimal flows of the group \(S_\infty\). Moreover, it is shown that one of them is the universal minimal flow for the above group, namely the standard action by double permutations on the space of all linear orders on the integers, considered as a zero-dimensional compact space. This space is also shown to be uniquely ergodic. The proofs are based on infinite combinatorics. Reviewer's remark: After the present article had appeared in a preprint form, an alternative proof of the main result was given by the reviewer in [Banyaga, Augustia (ed.) et al., Infinite dimensional Lie groups in geometry and representation theory, Washington, DC, USA, August 17-21, 2000. Singapore: World Scientific, 145-163 (2002; Zbl 1018.22016)].