Fake Lie groups and maximal tori. III (Q1184145)

[For parts I and II see ibid. 288, No. 4, 637-661 (1990; Zbl 0697.55006) and ibid. 663-673 (1990; Zbl 0697.55007), respectively.] A finite loop space \(X\) is called a fake Lie group of type \(G\) where \(G\) is a Lie group, if the classifying spaces \(BX\) and \(BG\) have the same genus. (Recall that two nilpotent spaces of finite type \(Y'\), \(Y''\) are said to have the same genus if their \(p\)-localizations are homotopy equivalent for all primes). In this note we characterize the simply connected Lie groups among all possible fakes as those which possess a maximal torus. In the non-simply connected case this is simply no longer true. We construct a remarkable family of compact connected Lie groups \(\mathbb{F}\mathbb{U}_ k(n)\), \(k\in\mathbb{N}\) with the property that \(B\mathbb{F}\mathbb{U}_ k(n)\in Genus(B\mathbb{U}(n))\) but \(B\mathbb{F}\mathbb{U}_ k(n)\) is homotopy equivalent to \(B\mathbb{U}(n)\) iff \(k\equiv\pm 1\) mod \(n\). We show that these are all fake Lie groups of type \(\mathbb{U}(n)\) which have a maximal torus.