Homotopy classification of 4-manifolds whose fundamental group is dihedral (Q2106581)

The homotopy type of an oriented Poincaré \(4\)-complex \(X\) with finite fundamental group \(\pi_1(X)\) is determined by its quadratic \(2\)-type, i.e., the quadruple \[ [\pi_1(X), \pi_2(X), k_X, \lambda_X] \] where \(\pi_2(X)\) is considered as a \(\mathbb{Z}[\pi_1(X)]\)-module, \(k_X \in H^3(\pi_1(X); \pi_2(X))\) is the \(k\)-invariant, \(\lambda_X\) is the equivariant intersection form, and two additional invariants [\textit{I. Hambleton} and \textit{M. Kreck}, Math. Ann. 280, 85--104 (1988; Zbl 0616.57009)]. Hambleton and Kreck also proved that if \(\pi_1(X)\) has \(4\)-periodic cohomology, the quadratic \(2\)-type is actually a complete homotopy invariant. This was improved by Bauer who showed this was true under the weaker assumption that \(\pi_1(X)\) is a finite group whose Sylow \(2\)-subgroup has \(4\)-periodic cohomology [\textit{S. Bauer}, Lect. Notes Math. 1361, 1--6 (1988; Zbl 0667.57007)]. Recently, it was shown in [\textit{D. Kasprowski} et al., ``Homotopy classification of 4-manifolds with finite abelian \(2\)-generator fundamental groups'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:2005.00274}] that this is also true when the Sylow \(2\)-subgroup of \(\pi_1(X)\) is abelian with two generators. The aim of this paper is to extend this to the case where the Sylow \(2\)-subgroup of \(\pi_1(X)\) is dihedral. The authors show that the homotopy type of a finite oriented Poincaré \(4\)-complex is determined by its quadratic \(2\)-type provided its fundamental group is finite and has a dihedral Sylow \(2\)-subgroup. By combining with results of Hambleton-Kreck and Bauer, this applies in the case of smooth oriented \(4\)-manifolds whose fundamental group is a finite subgroup of \(SO(3)\). An important class of examples are elliptic surfaces with finite fundamental group.