RESEARCH STATEMENT
ROBIN D. TUCKER-DROB
1. Background
My primary interests lie at the interface of descriptive set theory, ergodic theory,
representation theory, and measurable group theory. In studying problems in measurable group theory and the ergodic theory and representation theory of countable
groups, I have been aided and motivated by a global perspective informed by descriptive set theory. From this perspective, problems in ergodic theory may be seen
as topological-dynamical and descriptive problems concerning continuous actions of
the Polish group A = A(X, µ) of automorphisms of a standard (usually non-atomic)
probability space (X, µ). Likewise, representation theory may be studied via continuous actions of the Polish group U = U(H) of unitary operators on a separable
(usually infinite dimensional) Hilbert space H.
More concretely, if Γ is a countable group then the set A(Γ, X, µ) of all measure
preserving actions of Γ on (X, µ) naturally forms a Polish space on which A acts
continuously by conjugation. What is significant here is that the natural ergodic
theoretic notion of isomorphism ("conjugacy") of measure preserving actions of Γ is
exactly the orbit equivalence relation generated by this action of the Polish group
A; analogous remarks hold for unitary representations of Γ and the Polish group
U. Descriptive set theorists have developed a general theory of Borel reducibility,
which studies the set theoretic complexity of equivalence relations such as those
arising from Polish group actions. Applications of this theory to actions of A and
U have lead to deep and surprising insights into the nature of conjugacy in ergodic
theory and of unitary equivalence in representation theory. We begin with a brief
introduction to the basic notions of this framework.
2. Borel reducibility and classification
If E and F are equivalence relations on standard Borel spaces X and Y respectively, then E is called Borel reducible to F , denoted E ≤B F , if there is a Borel map
ψ : X → Y satisfying xEy ⇔ ψ(x)F ψ(y) for all x, y ∈ X. Such a map ψ is called
a Borel reduction from E to F . The substance of this notion lies in the requirement
that this map be definable in some sense, and there are theoretical reasons for choosing Borel definability. The resulting richness of the ordering ≤B and its continuing
success in comparing naturally occurring equivalence relations in mathematics may
be taken as further justifications for this choice. A Borel reduction from E to F
may be seen as providing an explicitly definable classification of elements of X up to
E-equivalence using the F -classes as invariants.
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An equivalence relation is said to be classifiable by countable structures if it is
Borel reducible to the isomorphism relation on some standard Borel space of countable structures, for example, countable graphs, groups, or partial orders. More
precisely, E admits classification by countable structures if there exists a countable
language L and a Borel reduction from E to isomorphism on the standard Borel
space XL of all L-structures with universe N. A classical example of such a classification is the Halmos-von Neumann Theorem which completely classifies all ergodic
measure preserving transformations with discrete spectrum, up to isomorphism, by
their group of eigenvalues [36]. Another example is Elliott’s complete classification
of unital AF-algebras by their pointed pre-ordered K0 -groups [22], [25]. On the other
hand, Hjorth has isolated a dynamical property called turbulence that may hold of
a Polish group action, and which is an obstruction to there being a classification
by countable structures for the orbit equivalence relation of that action. In fact,
turbulence is in a sense the only obstruction to the existence of such a classification
[34].
3. Approximation in the ergodic theory of countable groups
A (probability-)measure preserving action of a (discrete) countably infinite group
Γ on (X, µ) is a homomorphism a : Γ → A(X, µ). The set of all measure preserving
actions of Γ on (X, µ) naturally forms a Polish space A(Γ, X, µ) on which A acts
continuously by coordinate-wise conjugation. The orbit A · a of a ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) is
called its conjugacy class and two actions a and b from A(Γ, X, µ) with the same
conjugacy class are said to be conjugate. We say that b is weakly contained in a if it
is in the closure of the conjugacy class of a, and we call a and b weakly equivalent if
each weakly contains the other. If a ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) and b ∈ A(Γ, Y, ν) are actions with
different underlying probabilities spaces then we say that b is weakly contained in a
if it is a factor (i.e., quotient) of some c ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) that is weakly equivalent to a.
The weak containment relation is reflexive and transitive, and weak equivalence is
therefore an equivalence relation. Weak containment of measure preserving actions
was introduced by Kechris in [41] as an ergodic theoretic analogue of weak containment of unitary representations, and it has proven to be a remarkably robust notion
that accurately captures an intuition that one measure preserving action asymptotically approximates or simulates another. Abért and Elek have recently defined
a compact Polish topology on the set of weak equivalence classes in which many
important invariants of weak equivalence become continuous functions [2], [56]. A
fundamental theorem regarding weak containment is due to Abért and Weiss and
concerns the Bernoulli shift action of Γ which we now define.
Let Γ act on the set [0, 1]Γ of functions f : Γ → [0, 1] by shifting indices: (γ·f )(δ) =
f (γ −1 δ). This action preserves the product measure ν Γ where ν is Lebesgue measure,
and we call this measure preserving action the Bernoulli shift of Γ and denoted it by
sΓ . The Bernoulli shift provides an ergodic theoretic counterpart to the left regular
representation of Γ.
Theorem 3.1 (Abért-Weiss [5]). sΓ is weakly contained in every free measure preserving action of Γ.
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Conversely, any measure preserving action weakly containing sΓ must itself be free.
A measure preserving action is therefore free if and only if it exhibits approximate
Bernoulli behavior. Adrian Ioana conjectured that there is in fact an absorption
principle at work which strengthens this.
Conjecture 3.2 (A. Ioana). Let a be any free measure preserving action of a countably infinite group Γ. Then sΓ × a is equivalent to a.
Conjecture 3.2 strengthens Theorem 3.1 since the product action sΓ × a is easily
seen to weakly contain each of its factors. By combining ideas from [4] with a
close analysis of weak containment I showed that an even more general absorption
principle holds, of which Ioana’s conjecture is a special case [56].
Theorem 3.3 (T-D [56]). Conjecture 3.2 is true.
The reason I was interested in Theorem 3.3 was for its global consequences, which
I used to provide a strong negative answer to a question of Abért and Elek concerning
the relationship between conjugacy and weak equivalence. Abért and Elek exhibited
weak containment rigidity among E0 -ergodic profinite actions [3] and, prompted by
the orbit equivalence superrigidity results of Popa, asked whether it is was possible
possible to obtain full weak equivalence rigidity:
Question 3.4 (Abért-Elek [2]). Does there exist a countably infinite group Γ with
a free measure preserving action whose conjugacy class and weak equivalence class
coincide?
Combining Theorem 3.3 with the work of Kerr, Li, and Pichot [43] on turbulence
in spaces of C ∗ -algebra representations, I proved the following:
Theorem 3.5 (T-D [56]). Let a be any free measure preserving action of a countably
infinite group Γ. Then the conjugacy relation on the weak equivalence class of a is
not classifiable by countable structures.
This implies that the weak equivalence class of a contains a continuum of conjugacy classes, and thus provides a negative answer to Question 3.4. But the conclusion is actually much stronger than this: there is no Borel way of assigning countable
trees, groups, orderings etc., as invariants to actions in the weak equivalence class of
a that completely classifies these actions up to conjugacy.
4. Automatic Freeness
The subject of non-free measure preserving actions has received significant attention recently, see for example [4, 14, 15, 17, 21, 56, 57, 58, 60, 1, 2, 29, 59, 12, 54].
In [54], Stuck and Zimmer proved a strong generalization of the Margulis Normal
Subgroup Theorem for certain higher-rank semisimple Lie groups in terms of an automatic freeness property for many measure preserving actions of these groups. One
consequence is that if Γ is an irreducible lattice in such a group then any non-atomic
ergodic a ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) is almost free, i.e., there exists a finite normal subgroup N
of Γ such that the stabilizer Γx of almost every x ∈ X is equal to N . This is an
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example of automatic freeness at one extreme: by restricting considerably the group
Γ, a minimal hypothesis on the action is needed to ensure that it is almost free.
Recently, I proved an automatic freeness result at the other extreme in which Γ is
only assumed infinite, but a more serious ergodicity assumption is imposed on the
action [57]. A measure preserving action of Γ is called totally ergodic if each infinite
subgroup of Γ acts ergodically and it is called trivial if the underlying measure is a
point mass. I showed the following:
Theorem 4.1 (T-D [57]). All non-trivial totally ergodic actions of countably infinite
groups are almost free. In particular, all non-trivial mixing actions and all non-trivial
mildly mixing actions of countably infinite groups are almost free.
This is new even for the case of mixing actions; Weiss had previously observed that
actions of amenable groups with a much stronger mixing property called completely
positive entropy are almost free. The total ergodicity assumption is close to optimal
since there are examples due to Vershik [60] of actions with mixing properties only
slightly weaker than mild mixing, but which are totally non-free, which means that
these examples are in some sense as far from free as possible. The most surprising
aspect of Theorem 4.1 is that its proof ultimately relies on the Feit-Thompson odd
order theorem from finite group theory! Indeed, the proof of Theorem 4.1 directly
uses the group theoretic fact that every infinite locally finite group contains an infinite
abelian subgroup, and all known proofs of this fact in turn rely on the Feit-Thompson
theorem [39, 30, 53].
My subsequent investigations into natural analogues of Theorem 4.1 have revealed
connections to well known open questions about group C ∗ -algebras as well as to the
theory of cost, all discussed below.
5. Current and Future Research
5.1. Expressions of non-amenability in ergodic theory and representation
theory.
5.1.1. Amenable Invariant Random Subgroups. The freeness properties of an action
a ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) may be studied directly via that action’s stabilizer distribution, obtained as the image of the measure µ under the stabilizer map x 7→ Γx . This defines
a Borel probability measure on the space of subgroups of Γ that is invariant under
conjugation by elements of Γ. Any such probability measure is called an invariant
random subgroup of Γ, so-named by Abért, Glasner, and Virag, who showed that
every invariant random subgroup of Γ arises as the stabilizer distribution of some
measure preserving action of Γ [4]. Each normal subgroup of Γ is an invariant random subgroup when viewed as a Dirac distribution and many theorems originally
concerning normal subgroups have been shown to generalize to invariant random
subgroups, the Stuck-Zimmer Theorem being one prominent example. In what follows, an invariant random subgroup of Γ will be said to have a particular property
if it has that property with probability 1.
Open Question 5.1. Is every amenable invariant random subgroup of a countable
group Γ contained in some amenable normal subgroup of Γ?
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While this is open in general, Y. Glasner [28] has obtained a positive answer for
linear groups (see also the remark after (Diagram 0)). There is a useful way of
restating Question 5.1 in terms of the amenable radical of a group. Day showed that
every discrete group Γ contains a characteristic subgroup, called the amenable radical
of Γ and denoted ARΓ , which is amenable and which contains all other amenable
normal subgroups of Γ. Question 5.1 is then equivalent to the question of whether a
countable group with trivial amenable radical has no non-trivial amenable invariant
random subgroups.
5.1.2. Shift-minimality and C ∗ -simplicity. If C is a class of groups then a measure
preserving action of a group Γ is called C-ergodic if each subgroup of Γ in C acts
ergodically. Using an idea from the proof of Theorem 4.1, I showed that if a nontrivial action of Γ is NA-ergodic, where NA is the class of non-amenable groups,
then the invariant random subgroup associated to this action is amenable. One may
show that every measure preserving action weakly contained in the Bernoulli shift sΓ
is NA-ergodic, and therefore any non-trivial action weakly contained in sΓ gives rise
to an amenable invariant random subgroup of Γ which will be non-trivial provided
the original action was not free. Call a countable group Γ shift-minimal if every
non-trivial action weakly contained in sΓ is free.
Open Question 5.2 (T-D). If the amenable radical of Γ is trivial then is Γ shiftminimal?
The Abért-Weiss characterization of free actions as those weakly containing sΓ
yields that Γ is shift-minimal if and only if every non-trivial action weakly contained
in sΓ is in fact weakly equivalent to sΓ . It is well known that Γ is C ∗ -simple, i.e.,
the reduced C ∗ -algebra, Cr∗ (Γ), of Γ is simple, if and only if every non-zero unitary
representation of Γ weakly contained in the left-regular representation λΓ is actually
weakly equivalent to λΓ [31]. This is a tantalizing parallel, although there is no
obvious implication between the two properties.
Open Question 5.3 (T-D). Are all C ∗ -simple groups shift-minimal?
C ∗ -simplicity may be restated as a dynamical property of an action of the unitary
group U(H), where H = ℓ2 (Γ). The set Irrλ (Γ, H) of all irreducible representations
of Γ on H weakly contained in λΓ naturally forms a Polish space on which U(H)
acts continuously by coordinate-wise conjugation. Then Γ is C ∗ -simple if and only
if Γ is ICC and every unitary conjugacy class in Irrλ (Γ, H) is dense.
Evidence suggests that C ∗ -simple groups should be shift-minimal. I have shown for
example that shift-minimality of Γ follows from another property called the unique
trace property, which means that Cr∗ (Γ) has a unique tracial state, and the proof
of this indicates an approach to answering Question 5.3 positively. In all known
examples, the unique trace property and C ∗ -simplicity coincide, although it is open
whether this is the case in general.
Theorem 5.4 (T-D [58]). Groups with the unique trace property are shift-minimal.
In fact, groups with the unique trace property have no non-trivial amenable invariant
random subgroups.
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Powers [51] demonstrated C ∗ -simplicity and the unique trace property for nonabelian free groups, and since then many large classes of groups have been shown
to have both of these properties [32, 13, 9, 10, 8, 31, 33]. It is notable that in
many cases, including the original argument of Powers, the proof given for a group’s
C ∗ -simplicity makes use of stronger hypotheses than the corresponding proof that
the group has the unique trace property. The following diagram depicts the known
implications among the five notions discussed. Any implication not addressed by the
diagram is an open problem in general.
(Diagram 0)
No non-trivial ks
amenable IRS
C ∗ -simple
T-D
Unique trace
T-D
Shift-minimal mu
T-D
T-D
[49]
'/ Trivial amenable ow
radical
[49]
Theorem 5.4 and results of Poznansky [52] imply these properties are all equivalent
for linear groups.
5.1.3. Cost and the first ℓ2 -Betti number. Another recent development is a connection between shift-minimality and cost. The cost of a measure preserving countable
Borel equivalence relation is a [0, ∞]-valued orbit equivalence invariant introduced
by Levitt [45] and then developed considerably by Gaboriau [27]. The cost of a
measure preserving action of Γ is defined to be the cost of the equivalence relation
generated by this action. The cost of a group Γ, denoted C(Γ), is then defined as
the infimum of the costs of its free measure preserving actions. When Γ is infinite,
then C(Γ) ≥ 1. Γ is said to have fixed price r, where r ≥ 0, if every free action of Γ
has cost r. For example, infinite amenable groups have fixed price 1, and Gaboriau
has shown the free group of rank n has fixed price n. A major open question in the
area is whether every countable group has fixed price. This is known to be the case
for many groups, but is open in general. Recently, I proved the following, providing
many examples of shift-minimal groups:
Theorem 5.5 (T-D [58]). If a countable group Γ does not have fixed price 1 then
Γ/ARΓ is shift-minimal. In addition, if C(Γ) > 1 then every non-trivial invariant
random subgroup of Γ/ARΓ of infinite index has cost ∞, and in particular Γ/ARΓ
has no non-trivial amenable invariant random subgroups.
Results of Gaboriau imply ARΓ is finite in the above situation. Part of the proof of
the first statement in Theorem 5.5 involves extending Kechris’s result [41] that cost
respects weak containment in finitely generated groups, to the setting of general
countable groups; one consequence is a characterization of countable groups with
fixed price 1, previously shown to hold in the finitely generated case by Abért and
Weiss: a countable group has fixed price 1 if and only if its Bernoulli shift has cost
1. The second statement is an analogue of a theorem of Bergeron and Gaboriau
[12] about the first ℓ2 -Betti number. Theorems 5.4 and 5.5 along with Bergeron
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and Gaboriau’s result provide strong evidence for a positive answer to the following
question:
Open Question 5.6 (T-D). Let Γ be a countably infinite group and assume the
first ℓ2 -Betti number of Γ is positive. Must Γ/ARΓ be C ∗ -simple and have the unique
trace property?
(2)
It is known that C(Γ) ≥ β1 (Γ) + 1 for any countably infinite group Γ, where
(2)
β1 (Γ) is the first ℓ2 -Betti number of Γ. It is an open problem whether this is
(2)
actually an equality. Regardless, the hypothesis β1 (Γ) > 0 is at least as strong as
the hypothesis C(Γ) > 1 from Theorem 5.5. Peterson and Thom [50] have shown that
if Γ is torsion-free and satisfies an additional technical hypothesis, then Questions
5.6 has a positive answer. What they actually show is that groups satisfying their
hypotheses have many free subgroups, and then C ∗ -simplicity and the unique trace
property are easily deduced using a Powers-like argument from [10]. If the additional
technical hypothesis is dropped then their methods still show that Γ has rather strong
paradoxicality properties which may still be enough to deduce C ∗ -simplicity or the
unique trace property. This would unify and generalize many known examples of
groups with these properties. It would also provide additional evidence for a positive
answer to Question 5.3, and it would add an interesting dimension to the relationship
between cost and the first ℓ2 -Betti number.
5.2. Invariants of weak equivalence and measurable combinatorics. Theorem 3.5 shows that the degree to which countable invariants can provide meaningful distinctions, even within each weak equivalence class, is limited. Fortunately,
the notion of weak equivalence turns out to be valuable in itself: many important
properties of measure preserving actions have been shown to be invariants of weak
equivalence. Furthermore, these invariants of weak equivalence usually turn out to
exhibit interesting behavior under weak containment.
Many examples of this phenomenon arise in the study of measurable combinatorial
invariants of measure preserving actions (another example is cost, discussed in §5.1.3
above). If Γ is a finitely generated group, then for any finite generating set S of Γ\{e}
and action a ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) we consider the graph G(S, a), with underlying vertex set
X, and where x and y are connected by an edge if sa · x = y or sa · y = x for some
s ∈ S. We let E(S, a) ⊆ X × X denote the set of edges of G(S, a). Measurable
combinatorial parameters are then associated to G(S, a). For example:
(1) A subset A ⊆ X of vertices is said to be independent in G(S, a) if no two
vertices in A are adjacent. The independence number of the graph G(S, a),
denoted iµ (S, a), is then defined to be the supremum of the measures µ(A)
as A ranges over measurable subsets of X which are independent in G(S, a).
(2) The measurable chromatic number of G(S, a), denoted χµ (S, a) is the smallest
natural number k ∈ N such that there exists a measurable function c : X →
{0, 1, . . . , k − 1} (called a k-coloring) assigning no two adjacent vertices the
same value.1
1It is a non-trivial fact that this number is always finite.
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(3) The approximate chromatic number of G(S, a), denoted χap
µ (S, a) is the
smallest natural number k ∈ N such that for every ϵ > 0 there exists
a Borel set A ⊆ X with µ(A) > 1 − ϵ along with a measurable coloring
c : A → {0, 1, . . . , k − 1} of the induced subgraph G(S, a) A.
The parameters iµ and χap
µ both respect weak containment: if a is weakly conap
tained in b, then iµ (S, a) ≤ iµ (S, b) and χap
µ (S, a) ≥ χµ (S, b). In particular these
parameters are invariants of weak equivalence.
In [18], Clinton Conley, Alexander Kechris and I connected combinatorial properties of measure preserving actions to random graph-theoretic objects studied in
probability theory. An invariant random k-coloring of an infinite countable graph
G is a Borel probability measure on the compact space of k-colorings of G which is
invariant under automorphisms of G. Using ultraproduct techniques we were able to
address a question raised by Aldous and Lyons [7] about the existence of invariant
random colorings of Cayley Graphs of groups.
Theorem 5.7 (Conley-Kechris-T-D [18]). Let Γ be a countably infinite group with
finite generating set S. Let Cay(Γ, S) denote the Cayley graph of Γ with respect to
S and let d denote the degree of Cay(Γ, S) (i.e., d = |S ∪ S −1 |). Then Cay(Γ, S)
admits and invariant random d-coloring.
Aldous and Lyons had previously shown this to hold under the additional assumption that Γ is sofic. The following question of Lyons and Schramm remains open
(see [46]):
Open Question 5.8 (Lyons-Schramm). Let Γ be a countably infinite group with
finite generating set S. Let χ denote the (usual) chromatic number of Cay(Γ, S).
Does Cay(Γ, S) admit an invariant random χ-coloring?
Some of the most interesting open problems about measurable graph combinatorics concern the Bernoulli shift sFm of the free group Fm .
Open Question 5.9. What are the exact values of iµ (sFm ), χµ (sFm ), and χap
µ (sFm )
for m ≥ 2?
Conley and Kechris [19] obtained the bounds
1
2m
√
m+
√ 2m−1
2m−1
≤ iµ (sFm ) ≤
√
2m−1
√
m+ 2m−1
≤ χap
µ (sFm ) ≤ 2m
for all m ≥ 2, and Lyons and Nazarov [46] have obtained, for large values of m, the
m
bounds iµ (S, sFm ) ≤ log2m
and log2m
≤ χap
µ (S, sFm ). For the measurable chromatic
m
number the only known upper bound is χµ (S, sFm ) ≤ 2m + 1 for m ≥ 2. An
interesting development is that Marks [47] has recently shown that if one forgets
entirely the measure, then the Borel chromatic number (defined the same way as
the measurable chromatic number but with c ranging over Borel functions), of the
restriction of G(S, sFm ) to the free part of sFm , is exactly 2m + 1.
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6. Additional Projects and Question
6.1. Borel complexity of group representations. Let ≈Γ denote the unitary
conjugacy equivalence relation associated to the conjugation action of U(H) on the
Polish space Rep(Γ, H) of representations of Γ on an infinite dimensional separable
b Γ denote the restriction of ≈Γ to the Polish subspace Irr(Γ, H)
Hilbert space H. Let ≈
of irreducible representations. Hjorth has shown that if Γ is not abelian-by-finite,
b Γ is not classifiable by countable structures [35] (see also [43]). If Γ and ∆ are
then ≈
both amenable groups neither of which is abelian-by-finite, then Thomas has shown,
b Γ and ≈
b ∆ are Borel bi-reducible, i.e., ≈
b Γ ≤B ≈
b ∆ and
drawing on [55, 23], that ≈
b ∆ ≤B ≈
b Γ . This is one of the few Borel reducibility results comparing equivalence
≈
relations which are not classifiable by countable structures. It is striking that, although the statement is purely representation theoretic, the proof uses methods and
results from ergodic theory, most notably the Ornstein-Weiss Theorem. Thomas has
conjectured the following:
Open Conjecture 6.1 (S. Thomas). Let F2 denote the free group on two generators. Then
(1) ≈F2 B ≈Z
b F2 B ≈
b Γ.
(2) If Γ is any amenable group then ≈
6.2. Properties MD and FD. A residually finite group Γ has property MD [40]
if the finite actions (i.e., actions coming from finite quotients of Γ) are dense in
A(Γ, X, µ), and Γ has FD [44] if the finite representations are dense in Rep(Γ, H).
It is not difficult to show that MD implies FD, but the converse is unknown. It is
known that free groups and residually finite amenable groups have MD [40], MD is
closed under taking subgroups, and I have shown MD is closed under taking free
products [56]. The groups SLn (Z) for n ≥ 3 are known to not have FD [44] and
hence do not have MD. Lewis Bowen and I [16] have shown another closure property
of MD which implies that surface groups have MD and – in light of the recent proof
of the Virtual Fibration Conjecture by Agol [6] – that fundamental groups of closed
hyperbolic 3-manifolds have property MD. The natural next step is to study the
following possible generalization:
Open Question 6.2 (L. Bowen). Do hyperbolic groups which act properly and
cocompactly on CAT(0) cube complexes have property MD?
6.3. Free ergodic weak equivalence classes of non-amenable groups. Foreman and Weiss [26] have shown that any two free ergodic actions of an infinite
amenable group Γ are weakly equivalent. I have extended this by showing that for
an infinite amenable group Γ, two actions a, b ∈ A(Γ, X, µ) are weakly equivalent if
and only if they have the same stabilizer distributions [56]. This was also obtained
independently by Gabor Elek [21]. I am currently working with Miklos Abért on
addressing converses of these statements:
Open Question 6.3. If Γ contains a non-abelian free subgroups then are there
uncountably many weak equivalence classes of free ergodic actions in A(Γ, X, µ)?
What about for general non-amenable Γ?
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When Γ is a free group or a linear group with property (T), a positive answer
has already been obtained by Abért and Elek. I have shown a positive answer using
completely different methods for groups with enough normal or malnormal nonamenable subgroups (e.g., any group that has a normal or a malnormal nonabelian
free subgroup).
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