Some examples of aspherical 4-manifolds that are homology 4-spheres (Q1767610)

The authors solve Problem 4.17 on Kirby's 1977 problem list constructing infinitely many aspherical homology 4-spheres. The problem is : Can a homology 4-sphere ever be a \(K(\pi,1)\)? Are there examples of a rational homology 4-sphere which is a \(K(\pi,1)\)? In order to answer these questions, the authors perform infinitely many Dehn surgeries on the hyperbolic complement \(M\) of 5 linked 2-tori in \(S^4\). The hyperbolic 4-manifold is a double cover of a symmetric hyperbolic 4-manifold of minimum volume and with Euler characteristic one. \(M\) has 5 cusps, each of which is of the form \(T^3 \times [0, \infty)\). The closed 4-manifold \(\hat{M}\) obtained by Dehn surgery on each cusp of \(M\) is a homology 4-sphere. Moreover, all but finitely many 4-manifolds \(\hat{M}\) support Riemannian metrics with nonpositive curvature, and hence are aspherical.