Finitely Presented Covers of Topological Full Groups

Abstract

Commutator subgroups of infinite minimal subshifts provide the first examples of infinite, finitely generated, simple amenable groups. We prove that if $G$ is a finitely presented group which maps onto the commutator subgroup of the topological full group of an infinite minimal subshift, then $G$ contains a non-abelian free subgroup. This in particular implies that these groups are not finitely presented. We also show that the topological full group of an irreducible subshift of finite type contains non-abelian free subgroups.