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On computing homology gradients over finite fields

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2016

ŁUKASZ GRABOWSKI
Affiliation:
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YF.
THOMAS SCHICK
Affiliation:
Mathematisches Institut, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Bunsenstr. 3, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.

Abstract

Recently the so-called Atiyah conjecture about l2-Betti numbers has been disproved. The counterexamples were found using a specific method of computing the spectral measure of a matrix over a complex group ring. We show that in many situations the same method allows to compute homology gradients, i.e. generalisations of l2-Betti numbers to fields of arbitrary characteristic. As an application we point out that (i) the homology gradient over any field of characteristic different than 2 can be an irrational number, and (ii) there exists a finite CW-complex with the property that the homology gradients of its universal cover taken over different fields have infinitely many different values.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Philosophical Society 2016 

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