A uniqueness result for orthogonal groups as 2-compact groups (Q1348957)

Given two connected compact Lie groups it is well known that they are isomorphic if and only if their maximal torus normalizers are isomorphic. Recent work showed that a corresponding statement also holds for \(p\)-compact groups in case \(p\) is an odd prime, and it is conjectured that the analogous statement is also true for \(p=2\). In the paper under review the author provides a partial result towards affirming this conjecture. More precisely he proves the following: let \(G\) be a \(2\)-compact group which corresponds to a product of orthogonal groups and let \(X\) be a \(2\)-compact group; then \(G\) and \(X\) are isomorphic if and only if they are so-called \(N\)-isomorphic. As a corollary to this the author obtains the corresponding statements for the \(2\)-compact groups which correspond to \(Spin(2k+1)\) and \(SO(2k+1)\) respectively. To obtain the main result the author uses a theorem of \textit{H. Morgenroth} proved in [Homotopy uniqueness of products of orthogonal groups, Mathematica Gottingensis 6 (1996; Zbl 0896.55007)] which says that a \(2\)-compact group \(X\) is isomorphic to \(G\) if and only if the corresponding cohomology rings \(H^*(BX;\mathbb Z/2)\) and \(H^*(BG;\mathbb Z/2)\) are abstractly isomorphic as modules over the mod-2-Steenrod algebra. Given a \(2\)-compact group \(X\) which is \(N\)-isomorphic to \(G\) it therefore suffices to verify the cohomological condition of the theorem. To see the latter the author proceeds as follows. Let \(E_G\subset G\) be the inclusion of the maximal abelian \(2\)-group. Since \(X\) is \(N\)-isomorphic to \(G\) it follows that there is a corresponding inclusion \(E_G\subset X\). The Weyl groups \(W_G\) and \(W_X\) which belong to the two embeddings then both act on \(H^*(BE_G;\mathbb Z/2)\). The author then obtains the result by showing that the two Weyl groups and their actions are isomorphic and that \(H^*(BX;\mathbb Z/2)\) can be computed (as in the case where \(X=G\)) by \(H^*(BX;\mathbb Z/2)\cong H^*(BE_G;\mathbb Z/2)^{W_X}\).