The group of self-homotopy equivalences of \(A_n^2\)-polyhedra (Q778130)

Let \(n\geq 2\) be an integer. An \(A^{2}_{n}\)-polyhedron, \(X\), is a \(CW\) complex which is \((n+2)\)-dimensional and \((n-1)\)-connected. Let \(\mathcal{E}(X)\) denote the group of homotopy classes of self homotopy equivalences of \(X\) and \(\mathcal{E}_{*}(X)\) be those homotopy equivalences that act trivially on the homology of \(X\). This paper is concerned with the following question: what kind of groups may be realized as the quotient \(\mathcal{E}(X)/\mathcal{E}_{*}(X)\)? The main result on this is the following \textbf{Theorem 1.1. } Let \(X\) be a finite type \(A^{2}_{n}\)-polyhedron and \(n\geq 3\). Then \(\mathcal{E}(X)/\mathcal{E}_{*}(X)\) is either trivial or has elements of even order. In case \(n=2\) the authors prove \textbf{ Theorem 1.3. } Let \(X\) be an \(A^{2}_{2}\)-polyhedron of finite type such that \(\mathcal{E}(X)/\mathcal{E}_{*}(X)\) is a non-trivial finite group of odd order. Then \begin{enumerate} \item \(\text{rank }H_{4} (X)\leq 1\), \item \(\pi_{3}(X)\) and \(H_{3}(X)\) are \(2\)-groups and \(H_{2}(X)\) is an elementary abelian \(2\)-group, \item \(\text{rank }H_{3}(X)\leq \frac{1}{2}\text{rank }H_{2}(X)(\text{rank }H_{2}(X)+1)-\text{rank }H_{4} (X)\leq\text{rank }\pi_{3}(X)\), \item the natural action of \(\mathcal{E}(X)/\mathcal{E}_{*}(X)\) on \(H_{2}(X)\) induces a faithful representation in \(\mathrm{Aut}(H_{2}(X))\). \end{enumerate}