Arithmetic structure of CMSZ fake projective planes (Q855976)

\textit{D. I. Cartwright, A. M. Mantero, T. Steger} and \textit{A. Zappa} [[CMSZ]; Geom. Dedicata 47, 167--223 (1993; Zbl 0784.51011)] discovered a unitary group in three variables, which is defined as follows. Let \(K={\mathbb Q}(\sqrt{-15})\) and let \(\mathcal{O}_K={\mathbb Z}[\lambda]\) be its ring of integers, where \(\lambda=(1-\sqrt{-15})/2\). The prime \(2\) decomposes in \(K\). Let \(H\) be the certain hermitian matrix defined involving \(\lambda\) and \(\bar{\lambda}=1-\lambda\) (a dyadic unit). Define \({ U}(\mathbb Q)=\{g\in \text{GL}_3(K)\,| \, g^*Hg=H\}\), and let \({\mathcal{U}}={ U}({\mathbb Q})\cap \text{GL}_3({\mathcal{O}}_K[{{1}\over{2}}])\). Further, choosing an embedding \(K\hookrightarrow {\mathbb Q}_2\), the group \({ U}({\mathbb Q}_2)/({\mathbb Q}_2\otimes_{\mathbb Q} K)^{\times}\) is identified with PGL\(_3({\mathbb Q}_2)\). Let \(\Gamma\) be the image of \(\mathcal{U}\) in PGL\(_3({\mathbb Q}_2)\). Then \(\Gamma\) is a discrete and co-compact group, which, in this paper, is dabbed as the CMSZ group. The four authors [CMSZ] showed that \(\Gamma\) acts transitively on the vertices of the Bruhat--Tits building \(\Delta\) attached to PGL\(_3({\mathbb Q}_2)\). The CMSZ group has several interesting subgroups of finite index. This paper focuses on two of them. Explicit constructions of the two congruence subgroups of interest are carried out here independently from that of the four authors [CMSZ]. Then the fake projective planes associated to the two subgroups are constructed along the same construction as in \textit{D. Mumford} [Am. J. Math. 101, 233--244 (1979; Zbl 0433.14021)]. The goal of this paper is to study arithmetic structures of such fake projective planes. The main results are summarized as follows: Theorem. The two fake projective planes associated to the two congruence subgroups of CMSZ are realized as connected components of certain unitary Shimura surfaces. The proof uses the same argument as in the paper of the first author [\textit{F. Kato}, ``On the Shimura variety having Mumford's fake projective plane as a connected component'', Preprint (2005)].