Related papers: On upper bounds for the first $\ell^2$-Betti numbe…

We generalise results of Thomas, Allcock, Thom-Petersen, and Kar-Niblo to the first $\ell^2$-Betti number of quotients of certain groups acting on trees by subgroups with free actions on the edge sets of the graphs.

We prove that every finitely presented group with positive first $\ell^2$-Betti number that virtually surjects onto $\mathbb Z$ is acylindrically hyperbolic. In particular, this implies acylindrical hyperbolicity of finitely presented…

We show that the first $\ell^2$-Betti number of the duals of the free unitary quantum groups is one, and that all $\ell^2$-Betti numbers vanish for the duals of the quantum automorphism groups of full matrix algebras.

The first $\ell^2$ Betti number of a group is non-decreasing under various embeddings arising from first order logic. Strict inequality is proved for elementary embeddings of non-abelian proper subgroups within torsion free hyperbolic…

We show that there exist non-unitarizable groups without non-abelian free subgroups. Both torsion and torsion free examples are constructed. As a by-product, we show that there exist finitely generated torsion groups with non-vanishing…

Let $G$ be a countable group and $k$ a positive integer, we show that the $L^2$-Betti numbers of the group $G$ vanish up to degree $k$ provided that there is some infinite index subgroup $H$ with finite $k$th $L^2$-Betti number containing a…

The purpose of this note is to introduce a trick which relates the (non)-vanishing of the top-dimensional $\ell^2$-Betti numbers of actions with that of sub-actions. We provide three different types of applications: we prove that the…

We show that the first $L^2$-betti number of a finitely generated residually finite group can be estimated from below by using ordinary first betti numbers of finite index normal subgroups. As an application we construct a finitely…

We show that for a countable exact group, having positive first $\ell^2$-Betti number implies proper proximality in this sense of \cite{BoIoPe21}. This is achieved by showing a cocycle superrigidty result for Bernoulli shifts of…

In this paper, we show that certain families with relative property (T) have trivial first $\ell^2$-Betti number. We apply this to the elementary matrix group $\EL_n(\R)$ where $\R$ is any countable unital ring of characteristic 0.

We present a new method to construct finitely generated, residually finite, infinite torsion groups. In contrast to known constructions, a profinite perspective enables us to control finite quotients and normal subgroups of these torsion…

Uniform spanning trees on finite graphs and their analogues on infinite graphs are a well-studied area. On a Cayley graph of a group, we show that they are related to the first $\ell^2$-Betti number of the group. Our main aim, however, is…

A significant theorem of L\"uck says that the first $L^2$-Betti number of the total space of a fibration vanishes under some conditions on the fundamental groups. The proof is based on constructions on chain complexes. In the present paper,…

We show that if a group G is finitely presented and nilpotent-by-abelian-by-finite, then there is an upper bound on the first betti number of M as M runs through all subgroups of finite index in G.

We explore the Mayer-Vietoris sequence developed by Chiswell for the fundamental group of a graph of groups when vertex groups satisfy some vanishing assumption on the first cohomology (e.g. property (T), or vanishing of the first…

Recently, Eduard Schesler and the second author constructed examples of finitely generated residually finite, hereditarily just infinite groups with positive first $L^2$-Betti number. In contrast to their result, we show that a finitely…

The \emph{normal rank} of a group is the minimal number of elements whose normal closure coincides with the group. We study the relation between the normal rank of a group and its first $\ell^2$-Betti number and conjecture that inequality…

We apply a construction developed in a previous paper by the authors in order to obtain a formula which enables us to compute $\ell^2$-Betti numbers coming from a family of group algebras representable as crossed product algebras. As an…

Let G be a finitely generated group and (G_i) a descending chain of finite index normal subgroups of G. Given a field K, we consider the sequence b_1(G_i;K)/[G:G_i] of normalized first Betti numbers of G_i with coefficients in K, which we…

We prove that twisted $\ell^2$-Betti numbers of locally indicable groups are equal to the usual $\ell^2$-Betti numbers rescaled by the dimension of the twisting representation; this answers a question of L\"uck for this class of groups. It…