Integrability of moduli and regularity of Denjoy counterexamples (Q2196698)

The authors study the regularity of exceptional actions of groups by \(C^{1,\alpha}\) diffeomorphisms on the circle, that is, actions which admit exceptional minimal sets, and whose elements have first derivatives that are continuous with concave modulus of continuity \(\alpha\). The main result of the paper is the following: let \(G\) be a finitely generated group admitting a \(C^{1,\alpha}\) action \(\rho\) with a free orbit on the circle, and such that the logarithms of derivatives of group elements are uniformly bounded at some point of the circle. The authors prove that if \(G\) has spherical growth bounded by \(cn^{d-1}\) and if the function \(\frac{1} {\alpha^d}\) is integrable near zero, then (under some technical assumptions on \(\alpha\)) there is a sequence of exceptional \(C^{1,\alpha}\) actions of \(G\) which converge to \(\rho\) in the \(C^{1}\) topology. As a consequence, for a single diffeomorphism, the authors prove that if the function \(\frac{1}{\alpha}\) is integrable near zero, then there exists a \(C^{1,\alpha}\) exceptional diffeomorphism of the circle.