Deformations of nearby subgroups and approximate Jordan constants

Abstract

Let $\mathbb{U}$ be a Banach Lie group and $S\subseteq \mathbb{U}$ an ad-bounded subset thereof, in the sense that there is a uniform bound on the adjoint operators induced by elements of $S$ on the Lie algebra of $\mathbb{U}$. We prove that (1) $S$-valued continuous maps from compact groups to $\mathbb{U}$ sufficiently close to being morphisms are uniformly close to morphisms; and (2) for any Lie subgroup $\mathbb{G}\le \mathbb{U}$ there is an identity neighborhood $U\ni 1\in \mathbb{U}$ so that $\mathbb{G}\cdot U\cap S$-valued morphisms (embeddings) from compact groups into $\mathbb{U}$ are close to morphisms (respectively embeddings) into $\mathbb{G}$. This recovers and generalizes results of Turing's to the effect that (a) Lie groups arbitrarily approximable by finite subgroups have abelian identity component and (b) if a Lie group is approximable in this fashion and has a faithful $d$-dimensional representation then it is also so approximable by finite groups with the same property. Another consequence is a strengthening of a prior result stating that finite subgroups in a Banach Lie group sufficiently close to a given compact subgroup thereof admit a finite upper bound on the smallest indices of their normal abelian subgroups (an approximate version of Jordan's theorem on finite subgroups of linear groups).