More Polish full groups (Q260532)

Actions of countable groups \(\Gamma_1\) and \(\Gamma_2\) on a standard probability space \((X,\mu)\) are orbit equivalent if there is a map \(S\in\mathrm{Aut}(X)\) with \(S(\Gamma_1x)=\Gamma_2(Sx)\) for \(\mu\)-almost every \(x\in X\). One of several ways to formulate this notion of equivalence (which is an extremely coarse one, particularly for actions of amenable groups) is via the full group. The full group of an action of \(\Gamma\) on \((X,\mu)\) is the subgroup consisting of all \(T\in\mathrm{Aut}(X)\) such that for almost every \(x\in X\) we have \(Tx\in\Gamma x\). The full group carries knowledge of the orbit equivalence class in the sense that two such actions are orbit equivalent if and only if their full groups are conjugate in \(\mathrm{Aut}(X)\). Other properties preserved by orbit equivalence are visible here: for example, the action is ergodic if and only the full group is simple. Finer properties rely on topologies on the full group. Here `orbit' full groups are defined and studied for actions of arbitrary Polish groups rather than just countable ones, and many new examples and phenomena are found in this setting. In addition to the basic infrastructure, for example showing these full groups to be complete invariants of orbit equivalence, various characterizations of the existence of a dense conjugacy class for orbit full groups are found, and ergodic full groups of countable probability-preserving equivalence relations are characterized in terms of their character representations.