Vladimir Pestov, Epimorphisms of Hausdorff Groups by Way Of
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NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICS Volume 26 (1997), 257-262 EPIMORPHISMS OF HAUSDORFF GROUPS BY WAY OF TOPOLOGICAL DYNAMICS V l a d i m ir P e s t o v (Received November 1995) Abstract. Recent examples by Uspenskij show that epimorphisms in the cat egory of Hausdorff topological groups need not have dense range. We give a criterion for a morphism of Hausdorff groups to be an epimorphism in the language of topological dynamics. 1. Introduction Let C be a category and H, G € Ob C be two objects. A morphism / : H —► G is an epimorphism in C if every two morphisms g, h from G to any F £ Ob C coincide whenever g o f = h o f . In most commonly used categories of topologo- algebraic structures epimorphisms are either onto or have dense range. This is the case for discrete groups, abelian Hausdorff groups, compact groups, locally compact groups, fc-groups (for the references, cf. [15]), C*-algebras [3] etc. Only recently Uspenskij, answering a long-standing and resistant problem by Hofmann, has made an astonishing discovery: epimorphisms in the category of Hausdorff topological groups need not have dense range [14, 15, 16]. This phenomenon reveals a striking new feature of noncommutativity in the presence of topology and calls for immediate attention because of a large potential significance in the coming era of noncommutative analysis and geometry. In this note we establish a rather transparent and workable criterion for a mor phism of topological groups to be an epimorphism in the language of topological dy namical systems. Thus, the epimorphism problem for Hausdorff topological groups merges fully into the realm of topological dynamics. In particular, the original Us penskij’s example [14, 15] is shown to be closely linked (in fact, equivalent) to an earlier result by Megrelishvili on topological transformation groups [9, 10]. 2. Preliminaries By F(X) we denote the free group on a set X of free generators. Let G be a Hausdorff topological group. A topological G-space X together with a fixed topological group structure on X is called an automorphic G-space [9, 10] if G acts on X by topological group automorphisms. Every topological G-space X admits an (essentially unique) universal morphism i : X —► Fq (X) to an automorphic G-space F g {X), that is, l is a morphism of G-spaces and each morphism of G-spaces / from X to an arbitrary automorphic G-space A admits 1991 AMS Mathematics Subject Classification: 22A05, 54H20, 18A20. Key words and phrases: Epimorphisms, Hausdorff groups, automorphic G-spaces. Research partially supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Research, Science and Technology through the project “Dynamics in Function Spaces” of the International Science Linkages Fund. 258 VLADIMIR PESTOV a unique factorization / = / o where / : Fq {X) —► A is a morphism between automorphic G-spaces (in an obvious sense). One calls Fq (X) the free topological G-group on X . If the action of G is trivial, then Fg (X) turns into the familiar Markov free topological group on X [6]. It is easy to see that Fq {X) is always algebraically generated by the set t{X ), though it is still an open question whether or not Fg {X) must be algebraically free over t(X ). However, for a given G-space X the free topological G-group Fg {X) is just the Hausdorff replica of the free group F(X) equipped with the finest group topology such that its restriction to X is coarser than the original topology on X and the action G x F (X ) —> F(X) is continuous. The free topological G-group being trivial means that it is isomorphic to Z equipped with the discrete topology and the trivial action of G; in this case, l is constant and maps X to a generator of Z. For a detailed account of free topological G-groups, see [9, 10]. Let F and G be Hausdorff topological groups with a common closed subgroup H . (That is, in each of F and G there is a fixed closed subgroup isomorphic to H , together with a corresponding isomorphism.) The free product of F and G amalgamated over H is a Hausdorff topological group F *h G together with a pair of continuous homomorphisms i : F —> F *h G and j : G —> F *h G such that i\h = j\h (in an obvious sense) and every pair of continuous homomorphisms f ,g from F and G, respectively, to an arbitrary Hausdorff topological group A, satisfying f\H = 9\h, gives rise to a unique continuous homomorphism f * g : F *h G —* A with f = ( f * g) o i and g = ( / * g) o j. The free product with amalgamation exists, is essentially unique, and is algebraically generated by the set i(F) U j(G ) [4]. It is easy to see that in the case of the free product of two copies of a Hausdorff group G with itself, amalgamated over a closed subgroup H C G, both i and j are topological monomorphisms. (As a by-product of his results on epimorphisms, Uspenskij has observed in [15] that even in case where if is a proper closed subgroup, G *h G can coincide with G again; the equivalence (i) (ii) in our main Theorem belongs to him.) The reference for semidirect products of topological groups is [2], 2.6.20. 3. Results Before stating our criterion, it is convenient to reduce the case of an arbitrary continuous homomorphism between topological groups to that of an embedding of a closed subgroup. Proposition 1. Let f : H —* G be a continuous homomorphism of Hausdorff topological groups. Then the following are equivalent: (i) / is an epimorphism of Hausdorff groups. (ii) The embedding of f ( H ) into G as a closed topological subgroup is an epimor phism of Hausdorff groups. Proof. It is enough to observe that if g, h are continuous homomorphisms from G to any topological group A, then go f = ho f if and only if — ^\j{H)- O EPIMORPHISMS OF HAUSDORFF GROUPS 259 Theorem 2. Let H be a closed subgroup of a Hausdorff topological group G. Denote by X the left topological G-spaceG/H. The following conditions are equiv alent. (i) The embedding H <—* G is an epimorphism of Hausdorff groups. (ii) The free product G *h G of G with itself, amalgamated over H , coin cides with G in the sense that both i and j establish an isomorphism G = G *H G. (iii) Any equivariant morphism of the G-space X to an automorphic G-space is trivial. (iv) The free topological G-group of the G-space X is trivial. (v) The only group topology on the free groupF(X), making the natural action of G by left translations continuous, is indiscrete. Proof. (i) => (ii): Assuming that the free product with amalgamation G *h G is non-trivial, the canonical embeddings i ,j of G into G *# G are different, yet their restrictions to H coincide. (ii) =$■ (i): Suppose H <—> G is not an epimorphism, and let f ,g : G —► A be such that f ^ g and / \h = 9\h• Fix an x G G with f(x) ± g(x). The diagonal products Id A / and Id A g are topological group monomorphisms from G to the topological group G x A, coinciding with each other on H and such that (Id A f)(x) £ (Id Ag)(G). Now the free product G *h G is clearly different from G because i(x) £ j(G). (i) =>• (iii): Let F be an automorphic G-space and n : X —> F be a non-trivial morphism of G-spaces. Denote by r the action of G on F. Let A = G x T F be the topological group semidirect product of G with F relative the action r. Put e = 7r(H) £ F C A; the nontriviality of n(X) and transitivity of the action r on 7r(X) imply that for some g+ G G, one has g*£g+~l / e and therefore £<7*£-1 / g*. At the same time £ commutes with all elements of H. Now take for one morphism G —> A the canonical embedding G A, and for the other morphism the conjugate of the above embedding by e, that is, G 3 x t-> £X£~l G A. The two morphisms of G assume different values at g* yet coincide on H. (iii) =>■ (ii): Suppose that i(G) ^ G *h G. We will construct a non-trivial morphism of G-spaces from X = G/H to an automorphic G-space. The canonical isomorphism between the two copies of G gives rise to an automorphism 0 of G * h G , intertwining the two factors. Since the square of this automorphism is the identity map, it can be interpreted as an action of upon G*hG. Let A — 'L2\x(G*h G) be the corresponding semidirect product. Denote by 1 the generator of Z 2 C A\ the conjugation by 1 in A establishes the canonical isomorphism between i(G) and j(G). Because of non-triviality of the free product, 1 is not central in A, yet 1 commutes with every h G H. Define a continuous action r of G on A by automorphisms by letting for each g G G and a G A Tg{a) = i(g) > a • i(g)-1. 260 VLADIMIR PESTOV Now A becomes an automorphic G-space. The map w : G 3 x (-*• i(x) • 1 • «(x)_1 € A is continuous, nontrivial, its restriction to H is constant, and it commutes with the action r: for all x ,g e G, one has m(gx) = i(gx)-l-i{gx)~ 1 = i(g )i(x)-l •z(x)- 1 = i{g)w{x)i(g)~l = t9 w ( x ).