Existence, covolumes and infinite generation of lattices for Davis complexes (Q1932136)

For a locally compact topological group \(G\) interesting questions are if \(G\) contains a uniform or non-uniform lattice, what the set of covolumes of lattices in \(G\) is and if lattices in \(G\) are finitely generated. These questions are well studied in classical cases, e.g. for reductive groups over local fields. Surprising new phenomena have been discovered for the group \(G\) of automorphisms of a locally finite tree. In the paper under review the author studies these questions for \(G\) the group of automorphisms of the Davis complex \(\Sigma\) of a Coxeter system \((W, S)\). The Davis complex is a locally finite, piecewise Euclidean CAT(0) polyhedral complex and the Coxeter group \(W\) may be regarded as a uniform lattice in \(G\). The main result of the paper exhibits for certain Coxeter systems a non-uniform not finitely generated lattice in \(G\) and an infinite sequence of uniform lattices whose covolumes converge to the covolume of a non-uniform lattice. The author describes several infinite families of Davis complexes to which this result applies. In dimension two these include certain Fuchsian buildings and highly symmetric Platonic polygonal complexes. The main result also applies to many higher dimensional \(\Sigma\), including both buildings and complexes which are not buildings. The method of proof of the main result is to construct the lattices as fundamental groups of complexes of groups with universal cover \(\Sigma\).