On volumes of arithmetic quotients of PO(n,1), n odd

We determine the minimal volume of arithmetic hyperbolic orientable n-dimensional orbifolds (compact and non-compact) for every odd dimension n>3. Combined with the previously known results it solves the minimal volume problem for arithmetic hyperbolic n-orbifolds in all dimensions.Comment: 34 pages, final revision, to appear in Proc. LM

Manifolds counting and class field towers

In [BGLM] and [GLNP] it was conjectured that if $H$ is a simple Lie group of real rank at least 2, then the number of conjugacy classes of (arithmetic) lattices in $H$ of covolume at most $x$ is $x^{(\gamma(H)+o(1))\log x/\log\log x}$ where $\gamma(H)$ is an explicit constant computable from the (absolute) root system of $H$. In this paper we prove that this conjecture is false. In fact, we show that the growth is at rate $x^{c\log x}$. A crucial ingredient of the proof is the existence of towers of field extensions with bounded root discriminant which follows from the seminal work of Golod and Shafarevich on class field towers.Comment: 27 pages, a small change in title, final revision, to appear in Adv. Mat