Normalish Amenable Subgroups of the R. Thompson Groups

Abstract

Results in [Formula: see text] algebras, of Matte Bon and Le Boudec, and of Haagerup and Olesen, apply to the R. Thompson groups [Formula: see text]. These results together show that [Formula: see text] is non-amenable if and only if [Formula: see text] has a simple reduced [Formula: see text]-algebra. In further investigations into the structure of [Formula: see text]-algebras, Breuillard, Kalantar, Kennedy, and Ozawa introduce the notion of a normalish subgroup of a group [Formula: see text]. They show that if a group [Formula: see text] admits no non-trivial finite normal subgroups and no normalish amenable subgroups then it has a simple reduced [Formula: see text]-algebra. Our chief result concerns the R. Thompson groups [Formula: see text]; we show that there is an elementary amenable group [Formula: see text] [where here, [Formula: see text]] with [Formula: see text] normalish in [Formula: see text]. The proof given uses a natural partial action of the group [Formula: see text] on a regular language determined by a synchronising automaton in order to verify a certain stability condition: once again highlighting the existence of interesting intersections of the theory of [Formula: see text] with various forms of formal language theory.