Von Neumann Algebras of Sofic Groups with $β_{1}^{(2)}=0$ are Strongly $1$-Bounded

Abstract: We show that if $\Gamma$ is an infinite finitely generated finitely presented sofic group with zero first $L^{2}$ Betti number then the von Neumann algebra $L(\Gamma)$ is strongly $1$-bounded in the sense of Jung. In particular, $L(\Gamma)\not\cong L(\Lambda)$ if $\Lambda$ is any group with free entropy dimension $>1$, for example a free group. The key technical result is a short proof of an estimate of Jung using non-microstates entropy techniques.