Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2023
We single out a large class of groups ${\rm {\boldsymbol {\mathscr {M}}}}$ for which the following unique prime factorization result holds: if
$\Gamma _1,\ldots,\Gamma _n\in {\rm {\boldsymbol {\mathscr {M}}}}$ and
$\Gamma _1\times \cdots \times \Gamma _n$ is measure equivalent to a product
$\Lambda _1\times \cdots \times \Lambda _m$ of infinite icc groups, then
$n \ge m$, and if
$n = m$, then, after permutation of the indices,
$\Gamma _i$ is measure equivalent to
$\Lambda _i$, for all
$1\leq i\leq n$. This provides an analogue of Monod and Shalom's theorem [Orbit equivalence rigidity and bounded cohomology, Ann. of Math. 164 (2006), 825–878] for groups that belong to
${\rm {\boldsymbol {\mathscr {M}}}}$. Class
${\rm {\boldsymbol {\mathscr {M}}}}$ is constructed using groups whose von Neumann algebras admit an s-malleable deformation in the sense of Sorin Popa and it contains all icc non-amenable groups
$\Gamma$ for which either (i)
$\Gamma$ is an arbitrary wreath product group with amenable base or (ii)
$\Gamma$ admits an unbounded 1-cocycle into its left regular representation. Consequently, we derive several orbit equivalence rigidity results for actions of product groups that belong to
${\rm {\boldsymbol {\mathscr {M}}}}$. Finally, for groups
$\Gamma$ satisfying condition (ii), we show that all embeddings of group von Neumann algebras of non-amenable inner amenable groups into
$L(\Gamma )$ are ‘rigid’. In particular, we provide an alternative solution to a question of Popa that was recently answered by Ding, Kunnawalkam Elayavalli, and Peterson [Properly Proximal von Neumann Algebras, Preprint (2022), arXiv:2204.00517].
The author holds the postdoctoral fellowship fundamental research 12T5221N of the Research Foundation Flanders.
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