Homological filling functions with coefficients (Q2102721)

Summary: How hard is it to fill a loop in a Cayley graph with an unoriented surface? Following a comment of Gromov in ``Asymptotic invariants of infinite groups'', we define homological filling functions of groups with coefficients in a group \(R\). Our main theorem is that the coefficients make a difference. That is, for every \(n \geq 1\) and every pair of coefficient groups \(A, B \in \{ \mathbb{Z}, \mathbb{Q}\} \cup \{\mathbb{Z}{/} p \mathbb{Z}: p \text{ prime}\}\), there is a group whose filling functions for \(n\)-cycles with coefficients in \(A\) and \(B\) have different asymptotic behavior.