Amenability, bi-Lipschitz equivalence, and the von Neumann conjecture (Q1974941)

A metric space \(X\) is UDBG (uniformly discrete of bounded geometry) if for some \(\varepsilon>0\) any two points \(x\), \(x'\in X\) are separated by a distance at least \(\varepsilon\), and for any \(r>0\) there is a bound \(N_r\) of the cardinality of any \(r\)-ball in \(X\). The main result of the paper is the following: If \(f:X\to Y\) is a quasi-isometry between UDBG spaces, then there is a bi-Lipschitz map at bounded distance from \(f\) if and only if \(f_\ast([X])=[Y]\), where \([X]\) and \([Y]\) are the fundamental classes in \(H_0^{uf}\). The uniformly finite homology groups \(H_\ast^{uf}(X)\) were introduced by \textit{J. Block} and \textit{S. Weinberger} in [J. Am. Math. Soc. 5, 907-918 (1992; Zbl 0780.53031)], where they proved that \(X\) is nonamenable if and only if \(H_0^{uf}(X)=0\). Thus the theorem above generalizes an earlier result of \textit{P. Papasoglu} [Geom. Dedicata 54, 301-306 (1995; Zbl 0836.05018)] on bi-Lipschitz equivalence of homogeneous trees. As an application, the author works out the quasi-isometric classification of free products of (any finite number of) surface groups. In particular, it is shown that neither the sign of the Euler characteristic nor ratios of \(l^2\)-Betti numbers are quasi-isometric invariant, which answers a question of Gromov. Another application of the main result is the following theorem (which is called a geometric version of the von Neumann conjecture): An UDBG space \(Z\) is nonamenable if and only if \(Z\) admits a free action by a free group on two generators by bi-Lipschitz maps at bounded distance from the identity. As a consequence, it is shown that the vanishing of the 0-dimensional \(l^p\)-homology for any \(p\in(1,\infty]\) is equivalent to nonamenability. The case \(p=\infty\) is the result by J. Block and S. Weinberger mentioned above.