Growth of Betti numbers (Q1401006)

The authors discuss growth rates of Betti numbers in a family of coverings of a compact cell complex \(X\), when the corresponding \(L^2\) Betti number of \(X\) is zero. The two key factors in estimating the Betti numbers of covers of \(X\) are: `: If \(\Gamma\) is a finitely generated group, with the word metric from some fixed generating set, then for any subgroup \(\Gamma'\) of \(\Gamma\) they define short\((\Gamma')\) to be the length of the shortest nonidentity element of \(\Gamma'\). 2. The behaviour of the \(L^2\) spectrum of an infinite regular covering \(\widetilde X\) with covering group \(\Gamma' (X= \widetilde X/ \Gamma)\). The authors suppose that \(b_q^{(2)}(\widetilde X; \Gamma)=0\) (or equivalently that there are no \(L^2\) harmonic \(q\)-cochains on \(\widetilde X)\) and \(X'=\widetilde X/ \Gamma'\) is any finite regular cover of \(X\). Then, the main results in the paper are: 1. (Spectral gap) If there is a gap near 0 in the \(L^2\) spectrum of \(\widetilde X\) in dimension \(q\), then there are \(C>0\) and \(M>0\) so that \(b_q(X')\leq C[\Gamma: \Gamma']/e^{Mshort(\Gamma')}\). 2. (Positive Novikov-Shubin invariant) If \(\widetilde X\) has Novikov-Shubin invariant \(\alpha(q) >0\), then for any \(\varepsilon>0\) there is a \(C_\varepsilon >0\) so that \(b_q(X')\leq C_\varepsilon [\Gamma: \Gamma']/(short(\Gamma'))^{a(q)-\varepsilon}\). 3. (General case) There is a constant \(C\) such that \(b_q(X')\leq C [\Gamma:\Gamma']/ \log(short (\Gamma^*))\).