On the centralizers of minimal aperiodic actions on the Cantor set

Abstract

In this article we study the centralizer of a minimal aperiodic action of a countable group on the Cantor set (an aperiodic minimal Cantor system). We show that any countable residually finite group is the subgroup of the centralizer of some minimal $\mathbb Z$ action on the Cantor set, and that any countable group is the subgroup of the normalizer of a minimal aperiodic action of an abelian countable free group on the Cantor set. On the other hand we show that for any countable group $G$, the centralizer of any minimal aperiodic $G$-action on the Cantor set is a subgroup of the centralizer of a minimal $\mathbb Z$-action.