Amenable groups that act on the line

Abstract

Let Gamma be a finitely generated, amenable group. Using an idea of E Ghys, we prove that if Gamma has a nontrivial, orientation-preserving action on the real line, then Gamma has an infinite, cyclic quotient. (The converse is obvious.) This implies that if Gamma has a faithful action on the circle, then some finite-index subgroup of Gamma has the property that all of its nontrivial, finitely generated subgroups have infinite, cyclic quotients. It also means that every left-orderable, amenable group is locally indicable. This answers a question of P Linnell.