On the spectral gap for infinite index ``congruence'' subgroups of \(SL_2(\mathbb{Z})\) (Q811767)

A celebrated theorem of Selberg states that for congruence subgroups of \(SL_2(Z)\) there are no exceptional eigenvalues below \(3/16\). In 1995 Luo, Rudnick and Sarnak established a better bound by using properties of the Rankin-Selberg convolution \(L\)-functions on \(GL_3\). In 1991 Sarnak and Xue considered the case of cocompact arithmetic subgroups of \(SL_2(R)\). Proceeding along the lines of Sarnak and Xue a generalization of Selberg's theorem for infinite index congruence subgroups of \(SL_2(Z)\) is proved here. The main result is: Let \(\Lambda\) be a finitely generated subgroup of \(SL_2(Z)\) with \(\delta> 5/6\), where \(\delta=\) Hausdorff dimension of the limit set of \(\Lambda\). Let \(F(p)= \Lambda(p) \setminus H\). For \(p\) large enough: \[ \Omega\bigl( F(p)\bigr)\cap \bigl[\delta (1-\delta), 5/36\bigr]= \Omega \bigl(F(1) \bigr)\cap \bigl[ \delta(1-\delta), 5/36\bigr]. \] That is, \(\Omega(F(p))\) has a spectral gap where \(\Omega (F)\) denotes the spectrum of the Laplacian on \(L^2(F)\). Consequently, a problem of Lubotzky pertaining to expander graphs is solved.