Realizations of groups of piecewise continuous transformations of the circle (Q1986969)

The author studies the near action of the group PC of piecewise continuous self-transformations of the circle. A subgroup of PC is said to be realizable if it can be lifted to a group of permutations of the circle. Elements of the group PC are only defined modulo indeterminacy on a finite subset, which raises the question of realizability. The author proves that every finitely generated abelian subgroup of PC is realizable. He also shows that is not true for arbitrary subgroups through an example of non-realizable finitely generated subgroup of the group of interval exchanges with flips. The group of (oriented) interval exchanges is realizable; it suffices to choose the unique left-continuous representative. The author shows that it has only two realizations (up to conjugation by a finitely supported permutation): the left and right-continuous ones.