Local permutation stability

Abstract

We introduce a notion of “local stability in permutations” for finitely generated groups. If a group is sofic and locally stable in our sense, then it is also locally embeddable into finite groups. Our notion is weaker than the “permutation stability” introduced by Glebsky–Rivera and Arzhantseva–Paunescu, which allows one to upgrade soficity to residual finiteness. We prove a necessary and sufficient condition for a finitely generated amenable group to be locally permutation stable, in terms of invariant random subgroups (IRSs), inspired by a similar criterion for permutation stability due to Becker, Lubotzky, and Thom. We apply our criterion to prove that derived subgroups of topological full groups of Cantor minimal subshifts are locally stable, using Zheng’s classification of IRSs for these groups. This last result provides continuum-many groups which are locally stable, but not stable.