Rank, combinatorial cost, and homology torsion growth in higher rank lattices (Q1681614)

This article deals with the asymptotic behaviour of two delicate group invariants, the minimal size of a generating set (the rank) and the size of the torsion part of the first homology. In this article the authors develop new, geometric tools to estimate the rank and torsion in homology for subgroups of finite index in a special class of groups. This class includes nonuniform as well as uniform lattices in semisimple groups. The authors introduce the notion of right-angled group, which is the central object of investigation of this article. They prove the existence of cocompact higher rank right-angled lattices in various classes of simple Lie groups (in particular for \(\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb R)\) for \(n>2\)). As a consequence of their results, the authors provide the first examples of sequences of cocompact lattices in a simple Lie group of higher rank where the rank grows sublineary in the volume. The authors also connect the rank gradient of a Farber sequence to the combinatorial cost of the corresponding sofic approximation. And they obtain a result that controls the homology torsion for sofic approximations where there are effective rewirings to get close to the combinatorial cost.