Topological properties of Eschenburg spaces and 3-Sasakian manifolds (Q2480860)

This paper is a very nice contribution to the theory of positively curved Riemannian manifolds. The main object of study is a family of \(7\)-dimensional manifolds with positive sectional curvature, called Eschenburg spaces. Some of these manifolds have an additional geometric structure, called a \(3\)-Sasakian structure, which means that the Euclidean cone over the manifold is a hyper-Kähler manifold. \(3\)-Sasakian metrics on Eschenburg spaces were first found by \textit{C. P. Boyer, K. Galicki} and \textit{B. M. Mann} [J. Reine Angew. Math. 455, 183--220 (1994; Zbl 0889.53029)]. Similarly as for hyper-Kähler manifolds, \(3\)-Sasakian manifolds are very rare, and Boyer and Galicki have asked the question whether a manifold can admit more than one \(3\)-Sasakian structure. This paper answers this question in the affermative, by exibiting a pair of \(3\)-Sasakian Eschenburg spaces which are diffeomorphic but not isometric. They also find examples of Eschenburg spaces which are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic. This is achieved by studying the topological properties of these spaces, and then computing some differential invariants of Kreck and Stoltz to show that they are diffeomorphic (the computation of these invariants is a formidable task that requires some delicate number theory). A computer search then produced a unique example of diffeomorphic \(3\)-Sasakian Eschenburg spaces which are not isometric (They have different isometry groups).