Hyperbolicity as an obstruction to smoothability for one-dimensional actions (Q2318708)

This article discusses the existence of smooth actions of groups of piecewise projective homeomorphisms of the real line. Let \(M\) be a manifold and \(\mathrm{Homeo}(M)\) the group of all self-homeomorphisms of \(M\). A subgroup \(G \leq \mathrm{Homeo}(M)\) is \(C^n\)-smoothable \((n \geq 1)\) if it is conjugate in \(\mathrm{Homeo}(M)\) to a subgroup in \(\mathrm{Diff}^{n}(M)\), which denotes the group of \(C^n\) diffeomorphisms of \(M\). The geometric context is given by one-dimensional manifolds. In this framework \(\mathrm{Homeo}_+(M)\) is an index two subgroup of \(\mathrm{Homeo}(M)\) consisting of the orientation-preserving self-homeomorphisms on \(M\). In the introduction, the authors provide a terrific example which articulates what the authors' thoughts are. Consider a fixed rational number \(\lambda >1\) and define the maps \(f_{\lambda}, g: \mathbb R \rightarrow \mathbb R\) by \(f_{\lambda}(x)=\lambda x\) and \(g(x) = x+1\). Moreover, define a piecewise function \(h_{\lambda}: \mathbb R \rightarrow \mathbb R\) by \[h_{\lambda}(x)=\begin{cases} x &\text{if }x \leq 0 \\ \lambda x &\text{if }x>0. \\ \end{cases} \] Notice that these three maps \(f_{\lambda}\), \(g\) and \(h_{\lambda}\) generate a subgroup in \(\mathrm{Homeo}_+(\mathbb R)\), and we write \(G_{\lambda}\) to denote this subgroup. For any morphism \(\rho: G_{\lambda} \rightarrow \mathrm{Diff}_+^1([0, 1])\), we obtain the commutator \([g, h_{\lambda} g h_{\lambda}^{-1}]\) \(\in\) \(\mathrm{ker}(\rho)\), hence \(\rho\) is not one-to-one. Based on this example, one can further think about the natural realization \(\rho_0: G_{\lambda} \rightarrow \mathrm{Homeo}_+(\mathbb S^1)\) by viewing \(\mathbb S^1\) as becoming the projective space \(\mathbb R\mathbb P^1\). More specifically, \(\rho_0(f_{\lambda})\) and \(\rho_0(g)\), respectively, acts on \(\mathbb S^1\) as the projective action of the matrix \(\begin{bmatrix} \lambda &0 \\ 0&1 \end{bmatrix}\) and\(\begin{bmatrix} 1 &1 \\ 0&1 \end{bmatrix}\). Further, \(\rho_0(h_{\lambda})\) coincides with \(\rho_0(f_{\lambda})\) on the half-circle \([0, +\infty]\) and the identity map on \([-\infty, 0]\). In contrast to the initial assumption \(\lambda \in (1, +\infty) \cap \mathbb Q\), let us now drop the rational number hypothesis. In other words, fix an arbitrary real number \(\lambda \in (1, +\infty)\). The authors show there is no homeomorphism \(\phi : \mathbb S^1 \rightarrow \mathbb S^1\) such that \(\phi \rho_0(f_{\lambda}) \phi^{-1}\), \(\phi \rho_0(g) \phi^{-1}\) and \(\phi \rho_0(h_{\lambda}) \phi^{-1}\) are in \(\mathrm{Diff}^1_+(\mathbb S^1)\). We can rephrase the statement by saying that the natural action of \(G_{\lambda}\) on \(\mathbb S^1\) is not \textit{smoothable}. The authors obtain the following theorem, which is a main topic in this article. Theorem. For any \(\lambda >1\), the natural action of \(G_{\lambda}\) on the compactified real line \([-\infty, +\infty]\) is not \(C^1\)-smoothable. Note that the compactified real line assumption is essential in the theorem. If we ignore such an assumption, then the statement is no longer true [\textit{C. Bonatti} et al., Math. Z. 286, No. 3--4, 919--949 (2017; Zbl 1433.37030)].