Odd primary homotopy types of \(\mathrm{SU}(n)\)-gauge groups (Q518839)

For a simply connected simple compact Lie group \(G\) and an integer \(k\in \mathbb{Z}\), let \(P_k\) be the principal \(G\)-bundle over \(S^4\) with the second Chern number \(k\), and let \(\mathcal{G}_k(G)\) denote the gauge group of \(P_k\). For a positive integer \(n\geq 2\), let \(i:S^3\to\mathrm{SU}(n)\) and \(j_n:\Sigma \mathbb{C}\mathrm P^{n-1}\to \mathrm{SU}(n)\) denote the canonical inclusion of the bottom cell and the canonical map which induces a projection onto the generating set in cohomology, respectively. In this paper, the author studies the \(p\)-local homotopy types of the gauge groups \(\{\mathcal{G}_k(G):k\in \mathbb{Z}\}\) when \(G=\mathrm{SU}(n)\) and \(p\geq 3\) is an odd prime. First, he tries to estimate the \(p\)-local order of the two maps \[ \begin{cases} S^3\wedge \Sigma \mathbb{C}\mathrm P^{n-1}\overset{1\wedge j_n}{\longrightarrow}S^3\wedge \mathrm{SU}(n) \overset{\langle i, 1\rangle}{\longrightarrow}\mathrm{SU}(n) \\ S^3\wedge\mathrm{SU}(n) \overset{\langle i, 1\rangle}{\longrightarrow}\mathrm{SU}(n) \end{cases} \] where \(\langle i,1\rangle\) denotes the Samelson product. In particular, he shows that the \(p\)-local order of the former map is at most \(n(n^2-1)\), and it is exactly \(n(n^2-1)\) if \(n\leq (p-1)^2+1\). Moreover, he also proves that the \(p\)-local order of the latter map is exactly \(n(n^2-1)\) if \(n\leq (p-1)^2+1\). As an application, by using the above estimations he proves that there is a \(p\)-local homotopy equivalence \(\mathcal G_k(\mathrm{SU}(n))\simeq_p\mathcal{G}_{k^{\prime}}(\mathrm{SU}(n))\) iff \((n(n^2-1),k)=(n(n^2-1),k^{\prime})\) when \(n\leq (p-1)^2+1\) (here, \((a,b)\) denotes the greatest common divisor of the integers \(a\) and \(b\)).