Non-Hausdorff germinal groupoids for actions of countable groups

Abstract

We study conditions under which the germinal groupoid associated to a minimal equicontinuous action of a countable group on a Cantor set has non-Hausdorff topology. We develop a new criterion, which serves as an obstruction for the \'etale topology on the groupoid to be non-Hausdorff. We use this and other criteria to study the topology of germinal groupoids for a few classes of actions. In particular, we give examples of families of contracting and non-contracting self-similar groups, which are amenable and whose actions have associated germinal groupoids with non-Hausdorff topology.