Measure equivalence rigidity via s-malleable deformations

Abstract: We single out a large class of groups ${\mathscr{M}}$ for which the following unique prime factorization result holds: if $\Gamma_1,\dots,\Gamma_n\in {\mathscr{M}}$ and $\Gamma_1\times\dots\times\Gamma_n$ is measure equivalent to a product $\Lambda_1\times\dots\times\Lambda_m$ 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 \cite{MS02} for groups that belong to ${\mathscr{M}}$. Class ${\mathscr{M}}$ 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 ${\mathscr{M}}$. 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 in \cite{DKEP22}.