Free lamplighter groups and a question of Atiyah (Q2851619)

A free ``lamplighter group'' is a certain semidirect product of the free group \({\mathbf F}_d\) with \(d\) generators and the group of configurations from \({\mathbf F}_d\) to a cyclic group of a finite order \(m\). The legend is: an element of \({\mathbf F}_d\) describes a position of a lamplighter and a configuration describes the ``on/off'' state of lamps. In this legend, the lamplighter adjacency operators describe the ``switch-walk-switch'' operation. The authors explicitly calculate the von Neumann dimension of the kernels of the adjacency operators. It is shown that the dimensionalities are irrational for all \(d>2\) and \(m>2d-1\). It is known that the result provides an elementary constructive positive answer to a question of \textit{M. F. Atiyah} [Astérisque 32--33, 43--72 (1976; Zbl 0323.58015)]: Can \(L^2\)-cohomology and \(L^2\)-Betti numbers of manifolds with non-trivial fundamental group be irrational?