Dynamical Tits alternative for groups of almost automorphisms of trees (Q6879079)

A group of homeomorphisms \(G\) of a compact topological space \(X\) is said to satisfy the \textit{dynamical Tits alternative} if every (equivalently, every finitely-generated) subgroup of \(G\) either preserves a probability measure on \(X\) (x)or admits a \textit{ping-pong pair} acting on \(X\). The paper abstracts key ideas from the recent literature to present an elegant proof showing that an interesting class of totally disconnected locally compact groups satisfy such a dichotomy, viz. almost automorphism groups of locally finite trees, which consist of homeomorphisms of the boundary of a locally finite tree that are locally similarity maps (with respect to the visual metric).