Weak amenability of free products of hyperbolic and amenable groups

We show that if G is an amenable group and H is a hyperbolic group, then the free product $G\ast H$ is weakly amenable. A key ingredient in the proof is the fact that $G\ast H$ is orbit equivalent to $\mathbb{Z}\ast H$ .

Entropy, products, and bounded orbit equivalence

We prove that if two topologically free and entropy regular actions of countable sofic groups on compact metrizable spaces are continuously orbit equivalent, and each group either (i) contains a w-normal amenable subgroup which is neither locally finite nor virtually cyclic, or (ii) is a non-locally-finite product of two infinite groups, then the actions have the same sofic topological entropy. This fact is then used to show that if two free uniquely ergodic and entropy regular probability-measure-preserving actions of such groups are boundedly orbit equivalent then the actions have the same sofic measure entropy. Our arguments are based on a relativization of property SC to sofic approximations and yield more general entropy inequalities.

Orbit equivalence of graphs and isomorphism of graph groupoids

We show that the groupoids of two directed graphs are isomorphic if and only if the two graphs are orbit equivalent by an orbit equivalence that preserves isolated eventually periodic points. We also give a complete description of the (topological) isolated points of the boundary path space of a graph. As a result, we are able to show that the groupoids of two directed graphs with finitely many vertices and no sinks are isomorphic if and only if the two graphs are orbit equivalent, and that the groupoids of the stabilisations of two such graphs are isomorphic if and only if the stabilisations of the graphs are orbit equivalent.

A short note on Cuntz splice from a viewpoint of continuous orbit equivalence of topological Markov shifts

Let $A$ be an $N\times N$ irreducible matrix with entries in $\{0,1\}$. We present an easy way to find an $(N+3)\times (N+3)$ irreducible matrix $\bar {A}$ with entries in $\{0,1\}$ such that the associated Cuntz-Krieger algebras ${\mathcal {O}}_A$ and ${\mathcal {O}}_{\bar {A}}$ are isomorphic and $\det (1 -A) = - \det (1-\bar {A})$. As a consequence, we find that two Cuntz-Krieger algebras ${\mathcal {O}}_A$ and ${\mathcal {O}}_B$ are isomorphic if and only if the one-sided topological Markov shift $(X_A, \sigma _A)$ is continuously orbit equivalent to either $(X_B, \sigma _B)$ or $(X_{\bar {B}}, \sigma _{\bar {B}})$.

Dynamical simplices and Fraïssé theory

We simplify a criterion (due to Ibarlucía and the author) which characterizes dynamical simplices, that is, sets $K$ of probability measures on a Cantor space $X$ for which there exists a minimal homeomorphism of $X$ whose set of invariant measures coincides with $K$ . We then point out that this criterion is related to Fraïssé theory, and use that connection to provide a new proof of Downarowicz’ theorem stating that any non-empty metrizable Choquet simplex is affinely homeomorphic to a dynamical simplex. The construction enables us to prove that there exist minimal homeomorphisms of a Cantor space which are speedup equivalent but not orbit equivalent, answering a question of Ash.

Continuous orbit equivalence rigidity

We take the first steps towards a better understanding of continuous orbit equivalence, i.e., topological orbit equivalence with continuous cocycles. First, we characterize continuous orbit equivalence in terms of isomorphisms of$C^{\ast }$-crossed products preserving Cartan subalgebras. This is the topological analogue of the classical result by Singer and Feldman-Moore in the measurable setting. Second, we turn to continuous orbit equivalence rigidity, i.e., the question whether for certain classes of topological dynamical systems, continuous orbit equivalence implies conjugacy. We show that this is not always the case by constructing topological dynamical systems (actions of free abelian groups and also non-abelian free groups) that are continuously orbit equivalent but not conjugate. Furthermore, we prove positive rigidity results. For instance, for solvable duality groups, general topological Bernoulli actions and certain subshifts of full shifts over finite alphabets are rigid.

Lebesgue orbit equivalence of multidimensional Borel flows: A picturebook of tilings

The main result of the paper is classification of free multidimensional Borel flows up to Lebesgue orbit equivalence, by which we mean an orbit equivalence that preserves the Lebesgue measure on each orbit. Two non-smooth $\mathbb{R}^{d}$-flows are shown to be Lebesgue orbit equivalent if and only if they admit the same number of invariant ergodic probability measures.

POLISH MODELS AND SOFIC ENTROPY

We deduce properties of the Koopman representation of a positive entropy probability measure-preserving action of a countable, discrete, sofic group. Our main result may be regarded as a ‘representation-theoretic’ version of Sinaǐ’s factor theorem. We show that probability measure-preserving actions with completely positive entropy of an infinite sofic group must be mixing and, if the group is nonamenable, have spectral gap. This implies that if$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}$is a nonamenable group and$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}\curvearrowright (X,\unicode[STIX]{x1D707})$is a probability measure-preserving action which is not strongly ergodic, then no action orbit equivalent to$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6E4}\curvearrowright (X,\unicode[STIX]{x1D707})$has completely positive entropy. Crucial to these results is a formula for entropy in the presence of a Polish, but a priori noncompact, model.