On strongly just infinite profinite branch groups (Q528907)

A Polish group is a separable topological group whose topology admits a compatible complete metric. In the paper under review, the authors address the question, posed by \textit{C.~Rosendal} in [Isr.\ J.\ Math.\ 166, 349--367 (2008; Zbl 1155.54025)], whether there exists a non-discrete, locally compact Polish group which has the automatic continuity property, that is, such that every homomorphism to any Polish group is continuous. In the realm of non-locally compact Polish groups, many examples are known. Although the authors are not able to settle the question, their partial results are still interesting. Namely, they show that for profinite branch groups, the following properties are equivalent: the Bergman property; uncountable cofinality; Cayley boundedness; the countable index property; the condition that every non-trivial normal subgroup is open. A compact group enjoying the last property is called just infinite. This allows the authors to prove that, under mild additional assumptions, just infinite branch groups (for which one might see the survey by \textit{R. I.~Grigorchuk} [Prog.\ Math.\ 184, 121--179 (2000; Zbl 0982.20024)]) enjoy the invariant automatic continuity property, and the locally compact automatic continuity property. Among the examples and the applications, one finds the profinite completion of the Grigorchuk group, and many \textit{M. Burger} and \textit{S. Mozes} universal simple groups [Publ.\ Math., Inst.\ Hautes Étud.\ Sci.\ 92, 113--150 (2000; Zbl 1007.22012)].