Topologies on the group of Borel automorphisms of a standard Borel space (Q2471498)

The natural topologies on the group of invertible measure-preserving (or measure-class-preserv\-ing) transformations on a measure space have been studied from the ergodic point of view for many years, notably in the work of \textit{P. R. Halmos} [Ann. Math. (2) 45, 786--792 (1944; Zbl 0063.01889)] and \textit{V. A. Rokhlin} [Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, n. Ser. 60, 349--351 (1948; Zbl 0033.06601)]. Related results on typical homeomorphisms of compact metric spaces preserving a measure were studied earlier by \textit{J. C. Oxtoby} and \textit{S. M. Ulam} [Ann. Math. (2) 42, 874--920 (1941; Zbl 0063.06074)]. This paper is the first of two in which a systematic study of related issues are addressed in a rather natural setting for ergodic theory (the group of Borel automorphisms of a standard Borel space \((X,\mathcal B)\), that is a Polish metric space with its Borel \(\sigma\)-algebra) and for topological dynamics (the group of homeomorphisms of a Cantor set). This (substantial) paper develops the Borel setting, defining the natural topologies and finding relations among them. The two that emerge as most natural and interesting are the uniform topology~\(\tau\) (with a basis of neighbourhoods at the identity comprising \(\{S\mid\mu_i\{x\in X\mid Sx\neq x\}<\epsilon\}\) as the~\(\mu_i\) run over finite sets of Borel probability measures) and the weak topology~\(p\) (induced by the strong operator topology on the group of isometries of the Banach space of all bounded Borel functions with the supremum norm, on which the group acts through its left regular representation), partly because they are close analogues of those studied by Halmos and Rokhlin. The closures in these topologies of natural collections of transformations (periodic, aperiodic, odometers, incompressible, smooth) are described. In particular, it is shown that the closure in \(\tau\) of the set of odometers, and of rank-\(1\) Borel maps coincides with the set of all aperiodic transformations. Borel-Bratteli diagrams are associated to aperiodic transformations, and it is shown that any aperiodic Borel transformation is shown to be isomorphic to the Versik map on the space of paths in a natural order on the Borel-Bratteli diagram. This interesting paper contains many examples and new results that do much to clear up a rather natural circle of ideas in ergodic theory.