Rational discrete cohomology for totally disconnected locally compact groups

Abstract: Rational discrete cohomology and homology for a totally disconnected locally compact group $G$ is introduced and studied. The $\mathrm{Hom}$-$\otimes$ identities associated to the rational discrete bimodule $\mathrm{Bi}(G)$ allow to introduce the notion of rational duality groups in analogy to the discrete case. It is shown that semi-simple groups defined over a non-discrete, non-archimedean local field are rational t.d.l.c. duality groups, and the same is true for certain topological Kac-Moody groups. However, Y. Neretin's group of spheromorphisms of a locally finite regular tree is not even of finite rational discrete cohomological dimension. For a unimodular t.d.l.c. group $G$ of type $\mathrm{FP}$ it is possible to define an Euler-Poincar\'e characteristic $\chi(G)$ which is a rational multiple of a Haar measure. This value is calculated explicitly for Chevalley groups defined over a non-discrete, non-archimedean local field $K$ and some other examples.