Infinite Motion and 2-Distinguishability of Graphs and Groups

TL;DR

This paper extends the Motion Lemma to countably infinite groups, showing infinite motion guarantees 2-distinguishability in many cases, with implications for automorphism groups of graphs and orbit equivalence.

Contribution

It proves an infinitary version of the Motion Lemma for countably infinite groups and explores its implications for graph automorphisms and permutation group density.

Findings

Countably infinite groups with infinite motion are 2-distinguishable.

Every locally finite, connected graph with countably infinite automorphism group is 2-distinguishable.

Groups with infinite motion are dense among groups with infinite motion.

Abstract

A group A acting faithfully on a set X is 2-distinguishable if there is a 2-coloring of X that is not preserved by any nonidentity element of A, equivalently, if there is a proper subset of X with trivial setwise stabilizer. The motion of an element a in A is the number of points of X that are moved by a, and the motion of the group A is the minimal motion of its nonidentity elements. For finite A, the Motion Lemma says that if the motion of A is large enough (specifically at least 2 log_2 |A|), then the action is 2-distinguishable. For many situations where X has a combinatorial or algebraic structure, the Motion Lemma implies the action of Aut(X) on X is 2-distinguishable in all but finitely many instances. We prove an infinitary version of the Motion Lemma for countably infinite permutation groups, which states that infinite motion is large enough to guarantee 2-distinguishability. From this we deduce a number of results, including the fact that every locally finite, connected graph whose automorphism group is countably infinite is 2-distinguishable. One cannot extend the Motion Lemma to uncountable permutation groups, but nonetheless we prove that 2-distinguishable permutation groups with infinite motion are dense in the class of groups with infinite motion. We conjecture an extension of the Motion Lemma which we expect holds for a restricted class of uncountable permutation groups, and we conclude with a list of open questions. The consequences of our results are drawn for orbit equivalence of infinite permutation groups.