Left-orderable groups that don't act on the line (Q2516477)

A group is left-orderable if it admits a total order that is invariant under left multiplication. Denote by \(\mathcal H_+(\mathbb R)\) the group of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms and by \(\mathcal G_\infty\) the group of equivalence classes of such homeomorphisms under the equivalence \(f\sim g\) if there is \(x\in\mathbb R\) such that \(f\upharpoonleft[x,\infty)=g\upharpoonleft[x,\infty)\). Both groups are left-orderable but there is no non-trivial homomorphism \(\mathcal G_\infty\to\mathcal H_+(\mathbb R)\). It is noted that \(\mathcal G_\infty\) has cardinalty \(\mathfrak c\). The techniques are applied to describe a finitely generated subgroup of \(\mathcal G_\infty\) admitting no extension to \(\mathcal H_+(\mathbb R)\) and to show that \(\mathcal G_\infty\) does not act on the circle.