The group of self-homotopy equivalences of a rational space cannot be a free abelian group (Q2683705)

We always assume that the space \(X\) is a simply connected rational CW-complex of finite type, i.e. \(H^n(X;\mathbb{Z})\) is a vector space of finite dimension over \(\mathbb{Q}\) for every \(n\). For such a space \(X\), let \(\mathcal{E}(X)\) denote the group of all based homotopy classes of based self-homotopy equivalences of \(X\), whose multiplication is induced from the composition of maps. In this paper, the author considers the problem whether there exists a rational CW-complex \(X\) of finite type such that \(\mathcal{E}(X)\) is a free abelian group. Since it follows from a result due to Sullivan-Wilkerson that the group \(\mathcal{E}(X)\) is isomorphic to a linear algebraic group defined over \(\mathbb{Q}\) if \(\dim_{\mathbb{Q}}H^*(X;\mathbb{Z})<\infty\) or \(\dim_{\mathbb{Q}}\pi_*(X)<\infty\), we need to assume that \[ \dim_{\mathbb{Q}}H^*(X;\mathbb{Z})=\dim_{\mathbb{Q}}\pi_*(X)=\infty \tag{\(\ast\)} \] for this problem. Under the above assumption \((\ast)\), the author proves that there is no rational CW-complex \(X\) of finite type such that \(\mathcal{E}(X)\) is a free abelian group. The proof is based on a careful analysis of the Sullivan model of \(X\).