Group ring elements with large spectral density

Abstract

Given an arbitrary d>0 we construct a group G and a group ring element S in Z[G] such that the spectral measure mu of S has the property that mu((0,eps)) > C/|log(eps)|^(1+d) for small eps. In particular the Novikov-Shubin invariant of any such S is 0. The constructed examples show that the best known upper bounds on mu((0,eps)) are not far from being optimal.

19 pages, v3: Changes suggested by a referee; Essentially this is the version published in Math. Ann