A functional analysis proof of Gromov's polynomial growth theorem

Abstract

The celebrated theorem of Gromov asserts that any finitely generated group with polynomial growth contains a nilpotent subgroup of finite index. Alternative proofs have been given by Kleiner and others. In this note, we give yet another proof of Gromov's theorem, along the lines of Shalom and Chifan--Sinclair, which is based on the analysis of reduced cohomology and Shalom's property H_FD.