On nilpotent orientably-regular maps of nilpotency class \(4\) (Q2152795)

A (topological) map is a cellular decomposition of a closed surface given by a cellular embedding of a finite graph into the surface, an automorphism of a map is an automorphism of the underlying graph which extends to a self-homeomorphism of the surface. The authors study the problem of classification of regular maps with certain types of automorphism groups, concentrating on the case of orientably regular maps with an orientation-preserving nilpotent automorphism group. \textit{A. Malnič} et al. [Eur. J. Comb. 33, No. 8, 1974--1986 (2012; Zbl 1252.51013)] classified nilpotent regular maps of nilpotency class 2, \textit{M. Conder} et al. [J. Algebr. Comb. 44, No. 4, 863--874 (2016; Zbl 1362.57004)] proved that, for a given class \(c\), there are only finitely many simple nilpotent maps; however, as the authors note, for the nilpotent maps with multiple edges and given class the automorphism group may be arbitrarily large and, in order to determine the nilpotent maps, complicated and difficult computations in 2-group theory are involved, so it is reasonable to concentrate on small classes \(c\). The nilpotent maps of class 3 have been determined in unpublished work by Ban et al.; in the present paper, the authors determine the nilpotent maps of class 4, and the main result is a quite long and technical list for these cases.