The spectrum of simplicial volume (Q2225230)

The simplicial volume of a manifold \(M\) is a non-negative real number \(\|M\|\) that roughly measures how efficiently \(M\) can be ``triangulated over \(\mathbb R\)''. More precisely, given a topological space \(X\), the \(\ell^1\)-semi-norm of a homology class \(\alpha\in H_n(X;\mathbb R)\) is given by \[ \|\alpha\|_1=\inf\biggl\{\sum_j|\lambda_j| \ \biggl| \ \sum_j\lambda_j\sigma_j\in C_n(X;\mathbb R) \ \text{is a singular cycle representing} \ \alpha\biggl\}. \] When \(X=M\) is a closed oriented connected \(n\)-manifold, then the simplicial volume of \(M\) is given by \(\|M\|= \|[M]\|_1\), where \([M]\in H_n(M;\mathbb R)\) denotes the fundamental class of \(M\). In this paper, the authors study the set of simplicial volumes of closed oriented connected \(n\)-manifolds, denoted by \(\mathrm{SV}(n)\). The first interesting case occurs in dimension \(n=2\), where \[\mathrm{SV}(2)=\{0,4,8,\dots \}=\mathbb N[4],\] by the fact that the simplicial volume of a surface \(\Sigma_g\) of genus \(g\geq1\) is \(\|\Sigma_g\|=4(g-1)\). Similarly, using previous results in dimension \(n=3\), one obtains that \[\mathrm{SV}(3) = \mathbb N\biggl[\frac{vol(M)}{v_3}\biggl],\] where \(M\) ranges over all complete, finite-volume hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds with toroidal boundary and \(v_3\) is the maximal volume of an ideal simplex in \(\mathbb{H}^3\). The above two cases imply in particular that there is a gap of the values of the simplicial volume in dimensions \(n=2,3\). The main result of this article is that such a gap does not exist in dimensions \(n\geq4\), that is, \(\mathrm{SV}(n)\) is dense in the non-negative real numbers. Namely, the authors show that for every \(n\geq4\) and \(\varepsilon>0,\) there is a closed oriented connected \(n\)-manifold \(M\), such that \(0<\|M\|\leq\varepsilon\). In fact, in dimension \(4\), for any non-negative \(r\in\mathbb Q\), there is a closed oriented connected \(4\)-manifold with \(\|M\|=r\). The proof exploits computations of the \(\ell^1\)-semi-norm of integral homology 2-classes and Thom's realisation theorem on Steenrod's problem. Namely, the authors show that, for every non-negative \(r\in\mathbb Q\), there is a finitely presented group \(G_r\) and an integral class \(\alpha_r\in H_2(G_r;\mathbb R)\) (i.e. it lies in the image under the change of coefficients map induced by \(\mathbb Z\to\mathbb R\)) such that \(\|\alpha_r\|_1 = r\) (the space here is the classifying space). In order to do so, the authors show that, for a finitely presented group \(G\) with \(H_2(G;\mathbb R)=0\) and an infinite order element \(g\in[G,G]\), there is a finitely presented group \(D(G, g)\), given by an amalgamated product of two copies of \(G\), and a canonical integral class \(\alpha_g\in H_2(D(G, g);\mathbb R)\) whose \(\ell^1\)-semi-norm is a non-zero multiple of the stable commutator length of \(g\), more precisely that \[ \|\alpha_g\|_1 = 8 {scl}_G(g). \] Recall that the stable commutator length of \(g\) is given by \[ {scl}_G(g)=\lim_{k\to\infty}\frac{cl_G(g^k)}{k}, \] where the commutator length \(cl_G(g)\) of \(g\) is the minimal number of commutators in \(G\) required to express \(g\) as their product. The model group that is used with the above properties is the universal central extension \(E\) of Thompson's group \(T,\) which has moreover the property that every non-negative rational number is realised by the stable commutator length of some of its elements. Having the class \(\alpha_r\), the proof is then completed by taking cross products in homology of \(\alpha_r\) with fundamental classes of \(m\)-manifolds with positive simplicial volume (thus necessarily the product classes are in degrees \(n=m+2\geq4\)) and using Thom's realisation. The proof for the \(4\)-dimensional case follows by considering products of hyperbolic surface groups with \(G_r\) as above along with a more refined version of Thom's theorem.