On the growth of the first Betti number of arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q2356012)

Summary: We give a lower bound for the first Betti number of a class of arithmetically defined hyperbolic \(3\)-manifolds and we deduce the following theorem. Given an arithmetically defined cocompact subgroup \(\Gamma \subset \mathrm {SL}_2(\mathbb C)\), provided the underlying quaternion algebra meets some conditions, there is a decreasing sequence \(\{\Gamma_i\}_i\) of finite index congruence subgroups of \(\Gamma\) such that the first Betti number satisfies \[ b_1(\Gamma_i) \gg [\Gamma:\Gamma_i]^{1/2} \] as \(i\) goes to infinity.