Counting isospectral manifolds (Q1673981)

For a non-compact simple Lie group \(H\), consider the maximum cardinality \(IL_H(x)\) of a set of conjugacy classes of pairwise isospectral cocompact irreducible lattices in \(H\) whose covolume is at the most \(x\). When \(H\) has real rank at least \(2\), the authors prove that for some constant \(c=c(H)\), \(IL_H(x) \geq x^{c \log x/(\log \log x)^2}\). In an earlier paper of the first author with Alex Lubotzky, it was shown among other things that if \(H\) is a simple Lie group of real rank \(\geq 2\), then there exists a constant \(a>0\) such that the number of conjugacy classes of lattices in \(H\), of volume at most \(x\) is \(\geq x^{a \log(x)}\) for all large enough \(x\). Therefore, the lower bound for \(IL_H(x)\) for higher rank groups in the present paper comes surprisingly close to that for the whole \(L_H(x)\). More generally, the authors' lower bound for \(IL_H(x)\) works for those semisimple \(H\) which admit irreducible lattices and which have no simple factors of type \(A_1\). Their method does not quite work for semisimple \(H\) of type \(A_1\) which have more than one simple factor. The principal tool used is Sunada's celebrated method. The authors generalize Sunada's method to prove and use: Let \(M\) be a closed Riemannian orbifold, let \(G\) be a finite group with a family \(\{H_i\}_{i \in I}\) of subgroups which are Grassmann equivalent. If \(G'\) is a finite group containing \(G\) and \(\phi : \pi_1(M) \rightarrow G'\) is a surjective homomorphism, then the orbifolds associated to \(\phi^{-1}(H_i)\) are pairwise isospectral covers of the orbifold associated to \(\phi^{-1}(G)\). The groups \(G\) for which the authors use the above variant are \(3 \times 3\) Heisenberg groups over finite fields. Indeed, these Heisenberg groups arise as unipotent subgroups generated by certain root subgroups. The authors need some subtle number-theoretic constructions to get a sequence of extensions of a number field with some rather special properties. They use cyclotomic extensions.