Examples of homological torsion and volume growth (Q2043337)

Recently it has come to the fore that when studying the homology of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, the torsion subgroup in the first homology group \(H_1\) is in many ways its more interesting feature. In particular, while the Betti numbers \(b_1\) are often zero and usually small compared to the hyperbolic volume, a conjecture due in various contexts to W.~Lück (see references) and \textit{N. Bergeron} and \textit{A. Venkatesh} [J. Inst. Math. Jussieu 12, No. 2, 391--447 (2013; Zbl 1266.22013)] states that in a cofinite tower of covers the order of the torsion subgroup should be exponential in the hyperbolic volume, with exponential growth rate \(\tfrac 1{6\pi}\). Currently this conjecture is completely open, as no example is known of a cofinal tower even with positive exponential growth rate. In the present paper the authors construct towers where the torsion grows exponentially in the volume with an exponential growth rate \(\tfrac 1{4\pi}\). They are not cofinal, rather they exhaust an infinite free abelian cover. In this setting it is possible to establish the exponential growth with the rate given by the Mahler measure of the Alexander polynomial. In some particular examples described in the paper coming from links in a thickened torus it is possible to compute both the volume and the Mahler measure, hence the result. The authors conjecture that in general, for such link exteriors the exponential growth rate in the abelian tower should be at least \(\tfrac 1{4\pi}\).