Regular cross sections of Borel flows

Descriptive set theory (03E15) Measurable group actions (22F10) Algebraic ergodic theory, cocycles, orbit equivalence, ergodic equivalence relations (37A20) Dynamics induced by group actions other than (mathbb{Z}) and (mathbb{R}), and (mathbb{C}) (37C85)

Abstract: Any free Borel flow is shown to admit a cross section with only two possible distances between adjacent points. Non smooth flows are proved to be Lebesgue orbit equivalent if and only if they admit the same number of invariant ergodic probability measures.

Review text

The article deals with the problem of finding possibly regular cross sections of Borel flows. A Borel flow is an action of reals on a standard Borel space \(\Omega\) by Borel maps. It may be not possible to find a Borel transversal of such a flow (i.e., a subset intersecting every orbit exactly once), hence one is interested in finding a Borel cross section, i.e., a subset intersecting every orbit in a non-empty countable set. If the flow is free, then by picking a point in an orbit one can identify the orbit with the reals, and hence transfer the notions of distance and order. The main result of the article is that for such a flow there exists a cross section such that the distances between consecutive points in an orbit take only two values. In fact, for any two rationally independent numbers \(\alpha, \beta > 0\) and a constant \(\theta\in (0,1)\) it constructs a cross section with the above distances equal to either \(\alpha\) or \(\beta\) and the density of \(\alpha\)'s being equal to \(\theta\) in a uniform way in \(\Omega\). The result is a Borel analogue of the state of the art in the measure-theoretic setting. The existence of measurable cross sections (on a subset of full measure) for measure-preserving flows was proved by \textit{W. Ambrose} [Ann. Math. (2) 42, 723--739 (1941; Zbl 0025.26901)] and \textit{W. Ambrose} and \textit{S. Kakutani} [Duke Math. J. 9, 25--42 (1942; Zbl 0063.00065)] (similar results are also known for actions of locally compact groups, see [\textit{J. Feldman} et al., Adv. Math. 28, 186--230 (1978; Zbl 0392.28023)]). \textit{D. Rudolph} [Math. Z. 150, 201--220 (1976; Zbl 0325.28019)] showed that one can require the distances between consecutive points to take only two values, and \textit{U. Krengel} [Ann. Inst. Henri Poincaré, Nouv. Sér., Sect. B 12, 319--338 (1976; Zbl 0356.28005)] proved that one can prescribe the density of these values. In the Borel framework, the analogue of Ambrose's result was obtained in 1988 by \textit{V. M. Wagh} [Proc. Indian Acad. Sci., Math. Sci. 98, No. 2--3, 101--108 (1988; Zbl 0669.28008)] and generalised to actions of locally compact groups in 1992 by \textit{A. S. Kechris} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 12, No. 2, 283--295 (1992; Zbl 0761.28014)]. The question about a Borel analogue of the results of Rudolph and Krengel (i.e., the main result of the reviewed article) was explicitly posed 1998 by \textit{M. G. Nadkarni} [Basic ergodic theory. 2nd ed. New Delhi: Hindustan Book Agency (1998; Zbl 0958.28012)]. The article is written with a reader in mind. It not only delivers proofs but also shares ideas. In particular, Section 1.3 is devoted to explaining differences between the measure-theoretic and Borel settings, and the most technical sections are preceded by Section 4 unfolding the general strategy and sketching proofs of the main steps.

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