Krieger's finite generator theorem for actions of countable groups. II (Q2316710)

A fundamental result that relates the entropy of an ergodic measure-preserving transformation to its structure is given by \textit{W. Krieger}'s generator theorem [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 149, 453--464 (1970; Zbl 0204.07904)], which says that an ergodic measure-preserving system \((X,\mathcal{B},\mu,T)\) with finite entropy \(h\) always has a generating set with cardinality no more than \(\exp(h)\) elements. In earlier work of the author [Invent. Math. 215, No. 1, 265--310 (2019; Zbl 1417.37043)], the `Rokhlin entropy' of a measure-preserving action of a countable group \(G\) is defined, which in the case of an ergodic action may be defined as the infimum of \(H(\alpha)\) as \(\alpha\) ranges over all countable generating partitions. In terms of this notion of entropy, a result of Krieger type is found at this level of generality. Here further refinements of this result are found, and in particular it is shown that every free ergodic action with finite Rokhlin entropy has generating partitions that are almost Bernoulli. This considerably strengthens the result of \textit{M. Abért} and \textit{B. Weiss} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 33, No. 2, 323--333 (2013; Zbl 1268.37006)] that any free action weakly contains a Bernoulli shift. The main result is then used to study the Rokhlin entropy of Bernoulli shifts. Because of the complete generality (the group \(G\) is initially simply assumed to be countable), further results require an assumption as follows. Under the assumption that every countable group admits a free ergodic action of positive Rokhlin entropy, it is then shown that the Rokhlin entropy of a Bernoulli shift coincides with the Shannon entropy of its base; that Bernoulli shifts have completely positive Rokhlin entropy; and that \textit{W. H. Gottschalk}'s surjunctivity conjecture [Lect. Notes Math. 318, 120--125 (1973; Zbl 0255.54035)] and Kaplansky's direct finiteness conjecture both hold. For Part III, see [\textit{A. Alpeev} and the author, Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 41, No. 10, 2881--2917 (2021; Zbl 1480.37013)].