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George Peterzil

Publications and source records attributed to George Peterzil.

7 recordsLinked to original sources

Classification of Fuchsian groups with torsion

In their recent paper, Bergfalk and Smythe prove that the isometry equivalence relation on hyperbolic surfaces with finitely-generated fundamental group is concretely classifiable, and ask whether the same result holds true for 2-dimensional hyperbolic orbifolds, or equivalently, whether the action of $\text{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})$ on its space of finitely-generated discrete subgroups is concretely classifiable. In this note we answer this question in the affirmative. We then use the result to prove that a nonsingular ergodic $\text{PSL}_2(\mathbb{R})$-space with nonelementary finitely-generated stabilizers is homogeneous, in similarity with a result of Stuck-Zimmer for lattices in semisimple lie groups. The main ingredients of our proof are Selberg's lemma and a result of Greenberg on commensurators.

math.GR

Wasserstein stability and the nonsingular Borel lifting problem

The Borel lifting problem asks when a nonsingular near action of a Polish group can be represented by a genuine Borel action. For locally compact Polish groups, a classical theorem of Mackey and Ramsay gives an affirmative answer. At the opposite extreme, Glasner--Tsirelson--Weiss proved that every probability preserving Borel action of a L\'{e}vy group is trivial, and asked whether a L\'{e}vy group can admit a nontrivial nonsingular Borel action. We prove a fixed-point theorem which gives a negative answer for most of the standard L\'{e}vy groups in the literature: if $G$ is a locally Wasserstein group, then every quasi-invariant $\sigma$-finite Borel measure for a Borel action of $G$ is supported on the fixed points. The proof introduces Wasserstein stability, a local-to-global principle for compact measure metric groups that refines the Gromov--Milman framework for concentration of measure in topological groups. It asserts that for a compact measure metric group, on average, the total variation of locally distorted density kernels on the group controls their global Wasserstein distance from the Haar measure. We show that Wasserstein stability implies concentration, and prove a functional inequality using martingales in the spirit of Milman--Schechtman, which is governed by $\ell^{1}$-sums of martingale increments. This gives a geometric criterion by which most of the standard L\'{e}vy groups in the literature are Wasserstein or locally Wasserstein, including $L^{0}$-groups with compact targets, measure preserving and nonsingular automorphism groups, full groups of amenable equivalence relations, isometry groups of $L^{p}$-spaces for $p\neq2$, the unitary group of the hyperfinite $\mathrm{II}_{1}$-factor, the infinite dimensional unitary and orthogonal groups, the Cameron--Martin affine group, and the isometry group of the Urysohn space.

math.DS

Cofinal families of finite VC-dimension

Given infinite cardinals $θ\leq κ$, we ask for the minimal VC-dimension of a cofinal family $\mathcal{F}\subseteq[κ]^{<θ}$. We show that for $θ=ω$ and $κ=\aleph_n$ it is consistent with ZFC that there exists such a family of VC-dimension $n+1$, which is known to be the lower bound. For $θ>ω$ we answer this question completely, demonstrating a strong dichotomy between the case of singular and regular $θ$. We furthermore answer some relative and generalized versions of the above question for singular $θ$, and answer a related question which appears in \cite{BBNKS}.

math.LO

Uncountable Hyperfiniteness and The Random Ratio Ergodic Theorem

We show that the orbit equivalence relation of a free action of a locally compact group is hyperfinite (à la Connes-Feldman-Weiss) precisely when it is 'hypercompact'. This implies an uncountable version of the Ornstein-Weiss Theorem and that every locally compact group admitting a hypercompact probability preserving free action is amenable. We also establish an uncountable version of Danilenko's Random Ratio Ergodic Theorem. From this we deduce the 'Hopf dichotomy' for many nonsingular Bernoulli actions.

math.DS

Irrationality of the Length Spectrum

It is a classical result of Dal'Bo that the length spectrum of a non-elementary Fuchsian group is non-arithmetic, namely, it generates a dense additive subgroup of $\mathbb{R}$. In this note we provide an elementary proof of an extension of this theorem: a non-elementary Fuchsian group contains two elements whose lengths are linearly independent over $\mathbb{Q}$, reproving a result of Prasad and Rapinchuk.

math.GT

The Hopf decomposition of locally compact group actions

We develop a unified approach to the classical Hopf Decomposition (also known as the conservative--dissipative decomposition) for actions of locally compact second countable groups. While the decomposition is well understood for free actions of countable groups, the extension to general actions requires new techniques and structural insights, particularly concerning recurrence and transience, cocycle behavior, and the structure of stabilizers. We establish several new characterizations and prove a structure theorem for totally dissipative actions, generalizing Krengel's classical result for flows.

math.DS

Set Systems with Covering Properties and Low VC-Dimension

Given natural numbers $k \leq s \leq n$, we ask: what is the minimal VC-dimension of a family $\mathcal{F}$ of $s$-subsets of $[n]$ that covers all $k$-subsets of $[n]$? We first show that for sufficiently large $n$ this number is always $k$, and construct families which give a lower bound for the actual growth of this stabilization point.

math.CO