No label defined (Q4222611)

Let \(T\) be an ergodic measure-preserving transformation of the probability space \((X,{\mathcal B},m)\), \(G\) a locally compact second countable Abelian topological group and \(\phi: X\to G\) a measurable function. A \(G\)-extension (or skew product) \(T_\phi: X\times G\to X\times G\) is defined by \[ T_\phi(x,g)= (Tx,\phi(x)g), \] preserving \(\mu= m\times m_G\) where \(m_G\) is the Haar measure on \(G\). The centralizer of \(T_\phi\) is the set of all non-singular transformations of \(X\times G\) commuting with \(T_\phi\) and the invertible centralizer \(C(T_\phi)\) are those such invertible transformations. The authors are interested in those commutators of the form \[ Q(x,y)= (Sx, f(x)w(y)), \] where \(S\in C(T)\), \(w: G\to G\) is a continuous surjective group homomorphism and \(f: X\to G\) is measurable. It is known that the centralizer of \(T_\phi\) may contain non-invertible elements (\(T_\phi\) is said to be \textit{non-coalescent}) and may (if \(G\) is non-compact) contain transformations which do not preserve \(m_G\) (\(T_\phi\) is \textit{squashable}). The authors give new methods of establishing the ergodicity of \(T_\phi\) for non-compact \(G\), generalizing results from \textit{M. Lemańczyk}, \textit{P. Liardet} and \textit{J.-P. Thouvenot} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 12, No. 4, 769-789 (1992; Zbl 0785.58030)], and new examples which are squashable and also non-coalescent examples. The results are applied to give conditions for a conservative, ergodic, measure-preserving transformation to be isomorphic to a Maharam transformation, i.e., isomorphic to a transformation of the form \[ T(x,y)= \Biggl(Rx, y-\log{d(p\circ R)\over dp}\Biggr), \] where \(R: (\Omega,{\mathcal A},p)\to (\Omega,{\mathcal A},p)\) is a non-singular, conservative, ergodic transformation and \(T\) preserves the measure \(dm_T(x,y)= dp(x)e^y dy\).