Notes on non-Archimedean topological groups (Q429347)

The authors provide some applications of generalized Heisenberg groups, with emphasis on minimality properties, in the theory of \({\mathcal N}{\mathcal A}\) groups and actions on Stone spaces. In particular, they show that the Heisenberg type group \(H_X= (\mathbb{Z}_2\oplus V)\leftthreetimes V^*\), with the discrete Boolean group \(V:= C(X,\mathbb{Z}_2)\), canonically defined by any Stone space \(X\) is always minimal. That is, \(H_X\) does not admit any strictly coarser Hausdorff group topology. This leads to the following result: for every (locally compact) non-Archimedean \(G\) there exists a (resp., locally compact) non-Archimedean minimal group \(M\) such that \(G\) is a group retract of \(M\). This result covers a result of \textit{S. Dierolf} and \textit{U. Schwanengel} [Pac. J. Math. 82, 349--355 (1979; Zbl 0388.22002)] which asserts that every discrete group is a group retract of a locally compact non-Archimedean minimal group. Furthermore, the authors also unify some old and new characterization results for non-Archimedean groups.