Surgery with finite fundamental group. I: The obstructions (Q1183113)

[Part II is reviewed below (see Zbl 0749.57010).] This paper determines the surgery obstructions for all surgery problems of the form \(id\times \sigma: M\times K^{4k+2}\to M\times S^{4k+2}\) as explicit elements in the surgery obstruction groups \(L^ h_{n+1}\), where \(\sigma: K^{4k+2}\to S^{4k+2}\) is the usual Kervaire problem, and \(M\) is a closed compact oriented manifold with finite fundamental group. Due to the well known observation that the surgery obstruction for a surgery problem on a closed manifold depends only on the resulting cobordism class in \(\Omega_ *(B_{\pi_ 1(M)}\times G/TOP)\), this is the fundamental step in obtaining the surgery obstructions for all surgery problems over closed manifolds with finite fundamental group. One of the main results is that only three types of obstructions can occur. Explicitly, suppose a homomorphism \(f: \pi_ 1(M)\to \pi\) is given, determining a surgery obstruction class \(\sigma_ f(\text{id}\times\sigma)\in L^ h_{\dim(M)+2}(\mathbb{Z}\pi)\). A subquotient \(N\) of \(\pi\) determines a new surgery obstruction \(\sigma_{\phi\circ f\mid}(\text{id}\times \sigma)\in L^ h_{\dim(M)+2}(\mathbb{Z} N)\). The theorem is that if \(\dim(M)\not\equiv 2\bmod 4\), then \(\sigma_ f(\text{id}\times\sigma)\) is nonzero if and only if one of the obstructions \(\sigma_{\phi\circ f\mid}(\text{id}\times\sigma)\) is nonzero as \(N\) runs over quaternion groups, \(\mathbb{Z}/2\) quotients of \(\text{Syl}_ 2(\pi)\), or \(\dim(M)\equiv 0\bmod 4\) and the index of \(M\) is odd.