Cayley--Abels graphs and invariants of totally disconnected, locally compact groups

A connected, locally finite graph $\Gamma$ is a Cayley--Abels graph for a totally disconnected, locally compact group $G$ if $G$ acts vertex-transitively with compact, open vertex stabilizers on $\Gamma$. Define the minimal degree of $G$ as the minimal degree of a Cayley--Abels graph of $G$. We relate the minimal degree in various ways to the modular function, the scale function and the structure of compact open subgroups. As an application, we prove that if $T_d$ denotes the $d$-regular tree, then the minimal degree of ${\rm Aut}(T_d)$ is $d$ for all $d\geq 2$.