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Hyperbolic rank and subexponential corank of metric spaces

We introduce a new quasi-isometry invariant $\subcorank X$ of a metric space $X$ called {\it subexponential corank}. A metric space $X$ has subexponential corank $k$ if roughly speaking there exists a continuous map $g:X\to T$ such that for each $t\in T$ the set $g^{-1}(t)$ has subexponential growth rate in $X$ and the topological dimension $\dim T=k$ is minimal among all such maps. Our main result is the inequality $\hyprank X\le\subcorank X$ for a large class of metric spaces $X$ including all locally compact Hadamard spaces, where $\hyprank X$ is maximal topological dimension of $\di Y$ among all $\CAT(-1)$ spaces $Y$ quasi-isometrically embedded into $X$ (the notion introduced by M. Gromov in a slightly stronger form). This proves several properties of $\hyprank$ conjectured by M. Gromov, in particular, that any Riemannian symmetric space $X$ of noncompact type possesses no quasi-isometric embedding $\hyp^n\to X$ of the standard hyperbolic space $\hyp^n$ with $n-1>\dim X-\rank X$.