Topological classification of Bazaikin spaces

Abstract

Geometry of manifolds with positive sectional curvature has been a central object dates back to the beginning of Riemannian geometry. Up to homeomorphism, there are only finitely many examples of simply connected positively curved manifolds in all dimensions except in dimension 7 and 13, namely, the Aloff-Wallach spaces and the Eschenburg spaces in dimension 7, and the Bazaikin spaces in dimension 13. The topological classification modelled on the 7-dimensional examples has been carried out by Kreck-Stolz which leads to a complete topological classification for the Aloff-Wallach spaces. The main goal of this paper is to provide the topological classification of 13-dimensional manifolds modelled on the Bazaikin spaces.