Commensurating actions for groups of piecewise continuous transformations (Q2077196)

The author uses the notion of partial group action as formalized by \textit{R. Exel} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 126, No. 12, 3481--3494 (1998; Zbl 0910.46041)] in the context of groups piecewise preserving a geometric structure and he constructs a series of commensurating actions. We recall that given a group \(G\) acting on a set \(Y\), a subset \(X\) of \(Y\) is said to be commensurated if for every element \(g\) of \(G\), the symmetric distance \(X\Delta X\) is finite. The pair \((Y,X)\) is then said to be a commensurating action for \(G\). Commensurating actions are closely related to group actions on CAT(0) cube complexes, whose theory was developed in the last two decades by several authors, including the author of the present paper. He interprets the transfixing property of commensurating actions as the existence of a model for which the group acts preserving a geometric structure. He applies these techniques to obtain rigidity results in certain groups such as the group of piecewise affine and piecewise projective (possibly discontinuous) self-transformations of the circle. He also obtains various conjugacy results for subgroups with Property FW, or distorted cyclic subgroups. Here, a group \(G\) has Property FW if every commensurating action of \(G\) is transfixing, that is, using the above notation, if there exists a \(G\)-invariant subset \(X_0\) of \(X\) such that \(X\Delta X_0\) is finite. In particular, the author obtains, under suitable assumptions, the conjugacy of a given piecewise affine action to an affine action on possibly another model. As a corollary, he proves that the group of piecewise projective self-transformations of the circle has no infinite subgroup with Kazhdan's Property T. The author also obtains a classification of circle subgroups of piecewise projective homeomorphisms of the projective line.