8

Let $G$ be any group. Is there a topological space $(X,\tau)$ such that the automorphism group $\textrm{Aut}(X,\tau)$ is isomorphic to $G$?

  • 2
    At least for finite groups it is true. – Dune Nov 25 '14 at 08:13
  • 3
    According to the thread http://mathoverflow.net/questions/37356/realizing-groups-as-automorphism-groups-of-graphs on MathOverflow, the answer is yes. – Jeremy Rickard Nov 25 '14 at 08:36
  • @JeremyRickard I don't understand; the topological automorphisms of a graph is a big group, much bigger than the group of graph theoretic automorphisms. –  Nov 25 '14 at 18:02
  • 1
    @MikeMiller The thread I pointed to contains a reference to a construction for topological spaces as well as one for graphs: de Groot, J. (1959), Groups represented by homeomorphism groups, Mathematische Annalen 138 – Jeremy Rickard Nov 25 '14 at 19:29
  • @JeremyRickard Ah, thanks. Sorry, don't know how I missed that. –  Nov 25 '14 at 19:30

1 Answers1

3

As pointed out in the comments, this has been answered by Tony Huynh on MathOverflow. In

de Groot, J. ($1959$), Groups represented by homeomorphism groups, Mathematische Annalen $138$

the author shows that:

"for every group $G$ one can find a complete, connected, locally connected metric space $M$ of any positive dimension such that $G \cong A(M)$"

where $A(M)$ denotes the autohomeomorphism group of $M$.