Finitely presented simple groups with no piecewise projective actions

Abstract

We construct an explicit infinite family of pairwise non-isomorphic infinite simple groups of type $\mathrm{F}_\infty$ (in particular, they are finitely presented) that act faithfully on the circle by orientation-preserving homeomorphisms, but that admit no non-trivial piecewise affine nor piecewise projective actions on the projective line. Our examples are certain forest-skein groups which, informally, are a mixture of Richard Thompson's groups with Vaughan Jones' planar algebras.