Cantor systems, piecewise translations and simple amenable groups (Q363355)

A Cantor dynamical system comprises a homeomorphism \(T:C\to C\) of the Cantor set \(C\), and its associated topological full group \([[T]]\) is the group of homeomorphisms of \(C\) that are piecewise given by powers of \(T\), with the pieces being open subsets of \(C\). This group is countable, and work of \textit{T. Giordano, I. F. Putnam} and \textit{C. F. Skau} [Isr. J. Math. 111, 285--320 (1999; Zbl 0942.46040)] shows that the topological full group is a complete invariant for flip-conjugacy. Among several results showing that this construction yields interesting groups, \textit{H. Matui} [Int. J. Math. 17, No. 2, 231--251 (2006; Zbl 1109.37008)] showed that the topological full group is simple for any minimal Cantor system, and is finitely-generated if and only if the system is conjugate to a minimal subshift. \textit{R. Grigorchuk} and \textit{K. Medynets} [``On algebraic properties of topological full groups '', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1105.0719}] conjectured that \([[T]]\) is amenable if \(T\) is minimal, and this is the first theorem here. As a result the authors deduce that there exist finitely-generated simple groups that are infinite and amenable, and moreover that there are \(2^{\aleph_0}\) mutually non-isomorphic examples. None of these examples are finitely presented.