Equivariant torsion and base change (Q901786)

Let \(D\) be a quaternion algebra over an imaginary quadratic field \(F\) and let \(E/F\) be a cyclic Galois extension of degree \(p\). The paper establishes lower bounds for the amount of torsion in the cohomology of locally symmetric spaces attached to \(D_E^\times\), which have fundamental rank \(p > 1\). This goes in parallel with results of \textit{N. Bergeron} and \textit{A. Venkatesh} in the case of fundamental rank 1 [J. Inst. Math. Jussieu 12, No. 2, 391--447 (2013; Zbl 1266.22013)]. The author also proves a numerical relationship between the cohomology of certain locally symmetric spaces attached to \(D_E^\times\) and to \(D^\times\), which is consistent with the torsion base change implied by an analogue of Langlands functoriality for torsion cohomology proposed by \textit{F. Calegari} and \textit{A. Venkatesh} in [``A torsion Jacquet-Langlands correspondence'', Preprint, \url{arXiv 1212.3847}].