Strongly bounded generation in transformation groups

Abstract

Word metrics on finitely generated groups have canonical quasi-isometry classes, making quasi-isometry invariants genuine group invariants. Rosendal generalized this phenomenon to topological groups through CB-generation, but in the general topological setting the resulting quasi-isometry invariants are not invariants of the underlying abstract group. Specializing to the discrete case yields what we call SB-generated groups, where the invariants are genuinely algebraic. We show that SB-generation arises naturally in transformation groups by identifying several broad families of examples: the identity component of homeomorphism groups of closed manifolds, certain big mapping class groups, and homeomorphism groups of compact well-ordered spaces with successor limit capacity. These results demonstrate that SB-generation provides a robust extension of finite generation.