Homoclinic groups, IE groups, and expansive algebraic actions

We give algebraic characterizations for expansiveness of algebraic actions of countable groups. The notion of p-expansiveness is introduced for algebraic actions, and we show that for countable amenable groups, a finitely presented algebraic action is 1-expansive exactly when it has finite entropy. We also study the local entropy theory for actions of countable amenable groups on compact groups by automorphisms, and show that the IE group determines the Pinsker factor for such actions. For an expansive algebraic action of a polycyclic-by-finite group on X, it is shown that the entropy of the action is equal to the entropy of the induced action on the Pontryagin dual of the homoclinic group, the homoclinic group is a dense subgroup of the IE group, the homoclinic group is nontrivial exactly when the action has positive entropy, and the homoclinic group is dense in X exactly when the action has completely positive entropy.