Three-manifolds class field theory (Homology of coverings for a non-virtually Haken manifold)

This is a first in a series of papers, devoted to the relation betwwen three-manifolds and number fields. The present paper studies first homology of finite coverings of a three-manifold with primary interest in the Thurston $b_1$ conjecture.The main result reads: if $M$ does not yield the Thurston conjecture, then the pro-p completion of its fundamental group is a Poincar'e duality pro-p group. Conceptually, it means that we have a ``p-adic’’ three-manifold. We develop several algebraic techniques, including a new powerful specral seguence, to actually compute homology of coverings, assumong only information on homology of $M$, a thing never done before.A number of applications to the structure of finite group cohomology rings is also given.