Questions and remarks on discrete and dense subgroups of Diff(I)

Abstract

In recent decades, many remarkable papers have appeared which are devoted to the study of finitely generated subgroups of Diff+([0, 1]) (see [8, 15, 16, 19–23, 29, 30, 39, 40] only for some of the most recent developments). In contrast, discrete subgroups of the group Diff+([0, 1]) are much less studied. Very little is known in this area especially in comparison with the very rich theory of discrete subgroups of Lie groups which has started in the works of F. Klein and H. Poincaré in the 19th century, and has experienced enormous growth in the works of A. Selberg, A. Borel, G. Mostow, G. Margulis and many others in the 20th century. Many questions which are either very easy or have been studied a long time ago for (discrete) subgroups of Lie groups remain open in the context of the infinite-dimensional group Diff+([0, 1]) and its relatives.