Topological properties on hyperspace of group actions (Q2124521)

This paper is concerned with continuous actions of a countable discrete group \(G\) on a compact metric space \(X\) and the induced action on \(K(X)\), the hyperspace of compact subsets of \(X\) endowed with the Vietoris topology. Explicitly, the induced action is \(( g , K ) \mapsto \{ gx : x \in K \}\). Recall that \(x \in X\) is periodic if the orbit \(Gx\) is finite and that the action \(G \curvearrowright X\) is pointwise periodic if \(x\) is periodic for every \(x \in X\). The first main result of this paper is: Theorem. Suppose \(G \curvearrowright X\) is faithful. Then the induced action \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is pointwise periodic if and only if \(G\) is finite. The proof of this result is divided into two cases: \(X\) is finite and \(X\) is infinite. When \(X\) is finite, the authors intersect over all stabilizers to get the trivial subgroup as a subgroup of finite index, which implies that \(G\) is finite. When \(X\) is infinite, they prove the claim by contradiction supposing that \(G\) is also infinite. From here, they recursively build a sequence \(X_1 \subseteq X_2 \subseteq \cdots\) of finite subsets of \(X\) along with \(H_n\), the intersection of stabilizers of points in \(X_n\), each of which is of finite index in \(G\). They also take \(x_{n+1} \not\in X_n\) and \(g_n \in H_n\) so that \(g_nx_{n+1} \neq x_{n+1}\). Using the fact that the orbits of the \(x_n\) are pairwise disjoint and that \(X\) is compact, they suppose without loss of generality that \(x_n \to x_\infty\) and \(x_\infty \not\in \{x_n : n \in \omega\}\). Then \(Y = \{ x_n : n \in \omega \} \cup \{x_\infty\}\) is a compact subset of \(X\), and hence, periodic under the action \(G\). So \(H := \{ g \in G : gY = Y \}\) is a subgroup of finite index. By a pigeonhole argument, they end up with the existence of some \(n\) with \(|Gx_n \cap Y| \geq 2\), which contradicts the construction. For the remainder of the paper, the results mostly depend on the condition that \(G\) is abelian. Recall that the action \(G \curvearrowright X\) is distal if, for every non-diagonal pair \((x,y) \in X \times X\), \(\inf_{g \in G}d(gx,gy) > 0\). Lemma 4.12 states that, if \(G \curvearrowright X\) is equicontinuous, then it is distal. The authors then continue with the claim that follows. Theorem. If \(G\) is abelian then the following statements are equivalent: \begin{itemize} \item \(G \curvearrowright X\) is equicontinuous; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is equicontinuous; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is distal; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is pointwise minimal. \end{itemize} In the proof of the above theorem the authors use the fact that \(G \curvearrowright X\) is equicontinuous if and only if \(G \curvearrowright X\) is locally almost periodic. In Section 5, we find a useful result: Lemma. If the point \(x \in X\) is recurrent, then, for any \(\delta > 0\), the set \(W_{(x,\delta)} = \{ g \in G : d(gx,x) < \delta \}\) is an IP-set. The proof of this lemma consists mainly of a recursive construction and some technical details. A sequence of technical definitions and lemmas bring us to the following statement. Theorem. For infinite abelian \(G\), if the action \(G \curvearrowright X\) is locally recurrent, then the topological entropy of the induced action \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is zero. In Section 6, we find: Theorem. If the action \(G \curvearrowright X\) is transitive, then the induced action \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) has dense recurrent points. Though the authors state that above theorem holds for non-abelian groups, the proof uses the assumption that \(G\) is abelian twice. The last two major results of the paper are the following: Theorem. For abelian \(G\), the following statements are equivalent: \begin{itemize} \item \(G \curvearrowright X\) is weakly mixing; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is weakly mixing; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) is transitive. \end{itemize} Theorem. For abelian \(G\), the following statements are equivalent: \begin{itemize} \item \(G \curvearrowright X\) has dense small periodic sets; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) has dense small periodic sets; \item \(G \curvearrowright K(X)\) has a dense set of periodic points. \end{itemize}