BRANCH GROUPS, ORBIT GROWTH, AND SUBGROUP GROWTH TYPES FOR PRO- GROUPS

Abstract

In their book Subgroup Growth, Lubotzky and Segal asked: What are the possible types of subgroup growth of the pro- $p$ group? In this paper, we construct certain extensions of the Grigorchuk group and the Gupta–Sidki groups, which have all possible types of subgroup growth between $n^{(\log n)^{2}}$ and $e^{n}$ . Thus, we give an almost complete answer to Lubotzky and Segal’s question. In addition, we show that a class of pro- $p$ branch groups, including the Grigorchuk group and the Gupta–Sidki groups, all have subgroup growth type $n^{\log n}$ .