Finiteness of the topological rank of diffeomorphism groups

Abstract

For a compact smooth manifold $M$ (with boundary) we prove that the topological rank of the diffeomorphism group Diff${}_0^k(M)$ is finite for all $k\ge 1$. This extends a result from [2] where the same claim is proved in the special case of dim M = k = 1.

arXiv commentseveral typing errors corrected, a short paragraph re-written