Free actions of free groups on countable structures and property (T)

Abstract

We show that if G is a non-archimedean, Roelcke precompact Polish group, then G has Kazhdan's property (T). Moreover, if G has a smallest open subgroup of finite index, then G has a finite Kazhdan set. Examples of such G include automorphism groups of countable !-categorical structures, that is, the closed, oligomorphic permuta- tion groups on a countable set. The proof uses work of the second author on the unitary representations of such groups, together with a separation result for infinite permutation groups. The latter allows the construction of a non-abelian free subgroup of G acting freely in all infinite transitive permutation representations of G.