No label defined (Q3147759)

The aim of this paper is to show that several groups \(G\) of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of the closed interval are perfect. That is, every element of \(G\) is expressed as a product of commutators. The concrete groups discussed here are the group of homeomorphisms, of Lipschitz homeomorphisms, of the \(C^1(C^\infty)\) diffeomorphisms that are tangent (infinitely tangent) to the identity at the endpoints, respectively. Though some of the results stated here are already known, the author proposes new methods for the proofs. The ideas of those are firstly based on Mather's idea on the perfectness of the group of homeomorphisms on the real line with compact support. Secondly given an element of \(G\), he decomposes it into a product of elements of \(G\) which are the identity on subintervals accumulating to the endpoints. If \(G\) is the group of homeomorphisms or of Lipschitz homeomorphisms, the second stage follows from standard arguments with no estimation, and the results follow. On the one hand if \(G\) is the group of \(C^1\) diffeomorphisms possessing the above property, some estimations on regularity are needed to assure the second point. For it the author uses a fragmentation with respect to a partition of unity of the unit interval. Further discussion on small commutators is needed to obtain the final result, which says that any \(C^1\) diffeomorphism on \((0,1)\) with compact support is expressed as a product of commutators, and is proved in the Appendix. The new methods for \(C^\infty\) diffeomorphisms also follow this line. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0988.00069].