Sofic Mean Length

Given a length function L on the R-modules of a unital ring R, for each sofic group $\Gamma$ we define a mean length for every locally L-finite $R\Gamma$-module relative to a bigger $R\Gamma$-module. We establish an addition formula for the mean length. We give two applications. The first one shows that for any unital left Noetherian ring R, $R\Gamma$ is stably direct finite. The second one shows that for any $Z\Gamma$-module M, the mean topological dimension of the induced $\Gamma$-action on the Pontryagin dual of M coincides with the von Neumann-L\"{u}ck rank of M.
Comment: 54 pages. Minor changes. To appear in Adv. Math