On simplicity concepts for ergodic actions (Q2479624)

In this paper, the term ``dynamical system'' means a measure preserving action of a locally compact second countable group on a standard probability space. The author introduces the notion of a 2-fold near simple dynamical system, which is a generalization of the notion of a simple dynamical system introduced by \textit{W. A. Veech} [Monatsh. Math. 94, 335--341 (1982; Zbl 0499.28016)] and \textit{A. Del Junco} and \textit{D. Rudolph} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 7, 531--557 (1987; Zbl 0646.60010)]. Roughly speaking, a weakly mixing dynamical system is said to be 2-fold near simple if every ergodic joining of it with itself is either a product measure or is supported on a ``convex combination'' of graphs. A similar definition is made for higher-order near simplicity. The aim of the author in this paper is to study properties of near simple systems, to compare them with simple ones, and to produce examples of near simple nonsimple systems. The author proves an analogue of a theorem of Veech on factors, for 2-fold near simple actions. He shows that a weakly mixing group extension of an action with near minimal sef-joinings is near simple. He shows that the action of a normal co-compact subgroup is near simple if and only if the whole action is near simple. He shows that the subset of all 2-fold near simple transformations (i.e. \(\mathbb{Z}\)-actions) is meager in the group of measure-preserving transformations equipped with the weak topology. He produces a near simple quasi-simple transformation that is disjoint from any simple map.