Topological isomorphism for rank-1 systems (Q279749)

For a standard Lebesgue space \((X,\mu)\) the group \(Aut(X,\mu)\) of invertible, measure-preserving transformations considered modulo null sets and with the weak topology becomes a Polish group. Conjugation in this group raises fundamental questions for ergodic theory: measure-preserving transformations are measurably isomorphic if they lie in a conjugation orbit, the centralizer of a transformation in the sense of ergodic theory is the centralizer in this group. Within this setting many classification (and anti-classification) results are known, describing the set-theoretic complexity of various questions of isomorphism or of genericity. Here the special case of non-degenerate rank-one systems is considered, each of which may be viewed as a measure-preserving transformation of an atomless \(\sigma\)-finite measure space and as a homeomorphism of a Cantor set, and the whole collection is realised as a Polish space \(R\). The relation of topological isomorphism is characterized completely, and the set-theoretic complexity of the isomorphism relation is described, expressing it as an \(F_{\sigma}\) subset of \(R\times R\).