Uniform Kazhdan constants and paradoxes of the affine plane (Q2120896)

\noindent The aim of the paper under review is to prove (Theorem 1.1) the existence of a natural number \(n\) such that for any finite symmetric subset \(S\) of \(\operatorname{SL}(2,\mathbb{Z})\ltimes \mathbb{Z}^2\) containing \(1\) and generating a subgroup that is non-virtually soluble and has no global fixed point in \(\mathbb{Q}^2\), \(S^n\) contains two elements generating a non-abelian free group whose natural action on \(\mathbb{R}^2\) is \textit{locally commutative} (that is, elements fixing a common point commute). The proof of this result is based on a quantitative version of the ping-pong lemma and on an uniform affine version of Tits alternative. The main corollaries deal with paradoxical decompositions (Corollary 1.2), uniform non-amenability (Corollary 1.3) and uniform Kazhdan constants (Corollaries 1.4 and 1.5).