Higher Dimensional Thompson Groups

Abstract

We construct a "higher dimensional" version 2V of Thompson's group V. Like V it is an infinite, finitely presented, simple subgroup of the homeomorphism group of the Cantor set, but we show that it is not isomorphic to V by showing that the actions on the Cantor set are not topologically conjugate: 2V has an element with "chaotic" action, while V cannot have such an element. A theorem of Rubin is then applied which shows that for these two groups, isomorphism would imply topological conjugacy.