Moduli spaces of flat Riemannian metrics on 3- and 4-dimensional closed manifolds (Q6040643)

A closed flat Riemannian manifold \(M\) of dimension \(n\) is a quotient of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) by a freely acting Bieberbach group \(\pi\). \(\pi\) is a subgroup of the group \(\mathrm{Iso}(n)\) of isometries of \(\mathbb{R}^n\). It has been shown by \textit{J. A. Wolf} [Geom. Dedicata 2, 127--132 (1973; Zbl 0279.53039)], that the moduli space \(\mathcal{M}_{\text{flat}}(M)\) of flat metrics on \(M\) is in one-to-one correspondence with the double coset space \[ \mathrm{Iso}(n)\backslash C/N_\pi, \] where \(C\) is a subspace of the group \(\mathrm{Aff}(n)\) of affine transformations of \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and \(N_\pi\) is the normalizer of \(\pi\) in \(\mathrm{Aff}(n)\). In the paper under review the homeomorphism type and the topology of \(\mathcal{M}_{\text{flat}}(M)\) are discussed in the case that \(n=3\) or \(n=4\). For \(n=4\) this is only done for the case that the holonomy of \(M\) is generated by one element. For \(n=3\), it is completely decided depending on \(\pi\) if \(\mathcal{M}_{\text{flat}}(M)\) is contractible or not. For \(n=4\) a complete list of homeomorphhism types for \(\mathcal{M}_{\text{flat}}(M)\) (subject to the above restrictions) is given. But only for some of them it is decided whether they are contractible or not. The proofs are based on classifications of Bieberbach groups in dimension three and four.