Asymptotic invariants of lattices in locally compact groups

The aim of this work is to understand some of the asymptotic properties of sequences of lattices in a fixed locally compact group. In particular we will study the asymptotic growth of the Betti numbers of the lattices renormalized by the covolume and the rank gradient, the minimal number of generators also renormalized by the covolume. For doing so we will consider the ultraproduct of the sequence of actions of the locally compact group on the coset spaces and we will show how the properties of one of its cross sections are related to the asymptotic properties of the lattices.Comment: Final version, accepted in C. R. Math. Acad. Sci.. Major revision, many proofs were reworked and details were added. Most of Section 4 was rewritten. Minor changes to the main result