Universal covers and 3-manifolds (Q1579726)

Let us denote by \(\mathcal C\) the class of those finitely presented groups which are the fundamental groups of a finite fake surface, with no vertices whose link is homeomorphic to the 1-skeleton of a tetrahedron. The author shows in this paper that the class \(\mathcal C\) does not contain non-trivial perfect groups, and the main theorem of this paper is the following: Theorem. If \(G\in{\mathcal C}\), there is a finite 2-complex \(K\) with \(\pi_1(K)\cong G\) and whose universal cover \(\tilde{K}\) has the proper homotopy type of a 3-manifold. As a remarkable consequence of this theorem, the author proves that \(H^2(G;\mathbb Z G)\) is free abelian, which, according to Geoghegan and Mihalik, also occurs when \(G\) is semistable at infinity.