On profinite groups with positive rank gradient (Q6172759)

If \(G\) is a topologically finitely generated profinite group, then \(d(G)\) denotes the minimal number of topological generators of \(G\). Let \(G \geq H_{1} \geq H_{2} \geq \ldots\) be a chain of normal subgroups \(H_{i}\), each having finite index in \(G\) and such that \(\bigcap_{i} H_{i}=\{1\}\) (so \(G\) is residually finite). The rank gradient of \(G\) with respect to \((H_{i})\) is \(\mathrm{RG}(G,(H_{i}))=\lim_{i \rightarrow \infty}(d(H_{i})-1)\cdot |G:H_{i}|^{-1}\) (from Schreier's inequality \(d(H_{i})-1 \leq |G H_{i}|(d(G)-1)\) the rank gradient exists as limit of a monotonic non-increasing sequence). The main result proved in this paper is Theorem 1.1: Let \(G\) be a topologically finitely generated profinite group with positive rank gradient. Then \(G\) does not satisfy a nontrivial group law.