Isomorphic actions of group extensions on a measure space. (Q1890421)

Given a locally compact, second countable abelian group \(A\) and a locally compact, second countable amenable group \(G\), let \(E= E(G,A)\) be a group extension of \(A\) by \(G\). This paper studies the problem when a given nonsingular ergodic \(A\)-action \(T\) on a probability space \((X,{\mathcal B},\mu)\) can be extended to an action of \(E\). Since any such \(G\)-extension \(E\) of \(A\) is characterized by (the cohomology class) of a 2-cocycle \(f: G\times G\to A\), the (somewhat technical) conditions for extendibility of \(T\) are formulated in terms of the cocycle \(f\). In the case where \(T\) is the Mackey action of \(A\) on a skew-product extension of a finite measure-preserving, approximately finite, ergodic action of a countable group \(\Gamma\) on a probability space \((X,{\mathcal B},\mu)\) defined by a cocycle \(c: X\times\Gamma\to A\), the extendibility of this Mackey action imposes restrictions on \(c\) which are satisfied only by a set of cocycles of first category. The authors use these characterizations to obtain a number of explicit examples of actions which can or cannot be extended. The last part of the paper deals with the question when two extensions \(U_1\) and \(U_2\) to \(E\) of a Mackey-action \(T\) of \(A\) are isomorphic. As in the earlier part of the paper the conditions for this are both technical and natural.