Analytic, Reidemeister and homological torsion for congruence three-manifolds (Q2292298)

The starting point of this paper is the following special case of a conjecture of \textit{N. Bergeron} and \textit{A. Venkatesh} [J. Inst. Math. Jussieu 12, No. 2, 391--447 (2013; Zbl 1266.22013)]: Let \(\Gamma\) be a torsion-free arithmetic subgroup of \(\mathrm{SL}_2({\mathbb C})\), and \(V_{\mathbb Z}\) a free, finitely generated \(\mathbb Z\)-module with a \(\Gamma\)-action. Let \(t^{(2)}\) be the \(L^{2}\)-torsion which Bergeron and Venkatesh associate to \(V_{\mathbb Z}\) with respect to hyperbolic 3-space \({\mathbb H}^3\); it is a constant with values \(\frac{-1}{6\pi}\) for the trivial action, and \(\frac{-13}{6\pi}\) for the adjoint action on \(V_{\mathbb Z}\). If \(\Gamma \backslash {\mathbb H}^3\) is a closed or cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold, then there exists a sequence of subgroups \(\Gamma > \Gamma_1 > \dots > \Gamma_n > \dots\) with \(\bigcap_n \Gamma_n = \{1\}\) and \[ \lim_{n \to +\infty} \frac{\log |H^1(\Gamma_n; V_{\mathbb Z})_{\mathrm{tors}}|}{[\Gamma : \Gamma_n]} = -t^{(2)}\cdot\mathrm{vol}(\Gamma \backslash {\mathbb H}^3). \] In particular, this equation is conjectured to hold for any descending sequence \((\Gamma_n)_{n \in {\mathbb N}}\) of pairwise distinct congruence subgroups of \(\Gamma\). The author explains that this conjecture is currently open, that there is some numerical evidence in favour of it, and that in the case of trivial coefficients, the upper bound of the above conjectured equation was established by \textit{T. T. Q. Lê}, who had independently conjectured an essentially overlapping conjecture from a topological viewpoint [Ann. Inst. Fourier 68, No. 2, 611--645 (2018; Zbl 1409.57016)]. The main contribution of the paper is the following theorem: Let \(\Gamma\) be a Bianchi group, \(\Gamma_n\) be a cusp-uniform descending sequence of torsion-free congruence subgroups in \(\Gamma\), and \(V_{\mathbb Z}\) be a \(\Gamma\)-preserved lattice in a strongly acyclic real representation of \(\mathrm{SL}_2({\mathbb C})\). Then \[ \lim_{n \to +\infty} \frac{\log |H_1(\Gamma_n; V_{\mathbb Z})_{\mathrm{tors}}|}{\mathrm{vol}(\Gamma_n \backslash {\mathbb H}^3)} = \lim_{n \to +\infty} \frac{\log |H^2(\Gamma_n; V_{\mathbb Z})_{\mathrm{tors}}|}{\mathrm{vol}(\Gamma_n \backslash {\mathbb H}^3)}\leq -t^{(2)}. \] Furthermore, the paper provides limit multiplicity results for the irreducible components of \(L^2_{\mathrm{cusp}}(\Gamma_n\backslash\mathrm{SL}_2({\mathbb C}))\).