A minimal triangulation of the quaternionic projective plane (Q6828285)

The problem of finding minimal triangulations of manifolds with respect to the number of vertices is a classical problem in combinatorial topology. The solution of this problem is known for a fairly small set of manifolds. The difficulty of the problem increases especially with the growth of the dimension. The manifolds \(\mathbb{RP}^2\), \(\mathbb{CP}^2\), \(\mathbb{HP}^2\) are some of the fundamental objects in geometry and topology in dimension 2, 4 and 8, respectively. Minimal triangulations of \(\mathbb{RP}^2\) and \(\mathbb{CP}^2\) are known, but the problem remained open for \(\mathbb{HP}^2\). In [Math. Ann. 294, No. 1, 167--193 (1992; Zbl 0734.57017)], \textit{U. Brehm} and \textit{W. Kühnel} constructed a minimal triangulation of an \(8\)-dimensional manifold and conjectured that the manifold is PL-homeomorphic to \(\mathbb{HP}^2\). In this article, the author proves this conjecture.