Compact actions whose orbit equivalence relations are not profinite

Abstract

Let $\Gamma\curvearrowright (X,\mu)$ be a measure preserving action of a countable group $\Gamma$ on a standard probability space $(X,\mu)$. We prove that if the action $\Gamma\curvearrowright X$ is not profinite and satisfies a certain spectral gap condition, then there does not exist a countable-to-one Borel homomorphism from its orbit equivalence relation to the orbit equivalence relation of any modular action (i.e., an inverse limit of actions on countable sets). As a consequence, we show that if $\Gamma$ is a countable dense subgroup of a compact non-profinite group $G$ such that the left translation action $\Gamma\curvearrowright G$ has spectral gap, then $\Gamma\curvearrowright G$ is antimodular and not orbit equivalent to any, {\it not necessarily free}, profinite action. This provides the first such examples of compact actions, partially answering a question of Kechris and answering a question of Tsankov.