On the degree of groups of polynomial subgroup growth

Let be a finitely generated residually finite group and let denote the number of index subgroups of . If for some and for all , then is said to have polynomial subgroup growth (PSG, for short). The degree of is then defined by .

Very little seems to be known about the relation between and the algebraic structure of . We derive a formula for computing the degree of certain metabelian groups, which serves as a main tool in this paper. Addressing a problem posed by Lubotzky, we also show that if is a finite index subgroup, then .

A large part of the paper is devoted to the structure of groups of small degree. We show that is bounded above by a linear function of if and only if is virtually cyclic. We then determine all groups of degree less than , and reveal some connections with plane crystallographic groups. It follows from our results that the degree of a finitely generated group cannot lie in the open interval .

Our methods are largely number-theoretic, and density theorems à la Chebotarev play essential role in the proofs. Most of the results also rely implicitly on the Classification of Finite Simple Groups.