In this work, we investigate the dynamical and geometric properties of weak solenoids, as part of the development of a "calculus of group chains" associated to Cantor minimal actions. The study of the properties of group chains was initiated in the works of McCord [23] and Fokkink and Oversteegen [14], to study the problem of determining which weak solenoids are homogeneous continua. We develop an alternative condition for the homogeneity in terms of the Ellis semigroup of the action, then investigate the relationship between non-homogeneity of a weak solenoid and its discriminant invariant, which we introduce in this work. A key part of our study is the construction of new examples that illustrate various subtle properties of group chains that correspond to geometric properties of nonhomogeneous weak solenoids.

Abstract. We prove that a homogeneous matchbox manifold is homeomorphic to a McCord solenoid, thereby proving a strong version of a conjecture of Fokkink and Oversteegen, which is a general form of a conjecture of Bing. A key step in the proof shows that if the foliation of a matchbox manifold has equicontinuous dynamics, then it is minimal. Moreover, we then show that a matchbox manifold with equicontinuous dynamics is homeomorphic to a weak solenoid. A result of Effros is used to conclude that a homogeneous matchbox manifold has equicontinuous dynamics, and the main theorem is a consequence. The proofs of these results combine techniques from the theory of foliations and pseudogroups, along with methods from topological dynamics and coding theory for pseudogroup actions. These techniques and results provide a framework for the study of matchbox manifolds in general, and exceptional minimal sets of smooth foliations.

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Abstract. A matchbox manifold is a foliated space with totally disconnected transversals, and an equicontinuous matchbox manifold is the generalization of Riemannian foliations for smooth manifolds in this context. In this paper, we develop the Molino theory for all equicontinuous matchbox manifolds. Our work extends the Molino theory developed in the work ofÁlvarez López and Moreira Galicia which required the hypothesis that the holonomy actions for these spaces satisfy the strong quasi-analyticity condition. The methods of this paper are based on the authors' previous works on the structure of weak solenoids, and provide many new properties of the Molino theory for the case of totally disconnected transversals, and examples to illustrate these properties. In particular, we show that the Molino space need not be uniquely well-defined, unless the global holonomy dynamical system is stable, a notion defined in this work. We show that examples in the literature for the theory of weak solenoids provide examples for which the strong quasi-analytic condition fails. Of particular interest is a new class of examples of equicontinuous minimal Cantor actions by finitely generated groups, whose construction relies on a result of Lubotzky. These examples have non-trivial Molino sequences, and other interesting properties.