A PD4 group without an aspherical manifold model

OpenAI

An OpenAI manuscript claims a finitely presented integral Poincaré-duality group of dimension four with a finite oriented aspherical Poincaré complex, but no closed aspherical topological four-manifold model.

Sources for this record

What was already known

Earlier nonrealizable integral PD groups were not finitely presented; rational-duality examples did not settle the integral finite-classifying-space case.

AI involvement AI-led

OpenAI is credited as author and attributes the manuscript family to an internal model. The construction also uses human-developed reflection-group and surgery theory; item-specific human prompting is not described.

OpenAI institutional authorship and repository provenance document central model-produced mathematical work.

Importance Major

One four-dimensional example would refute Wall’s universal manifold-realization question for finitely presented integral PD groups.

Limitations

The construction depends on a separate marked-tensor obstruction manuscript. No matching formalization or completed human check of that essential input is documented. It does not give examples in every dimension.

Technical verification Reported

The original TeX states and proves the result but no matching formalization or completed human check was found. Its companion marked tensor obstruction is an essential unverified input.

Human understanding Few

The paper explains its own architecture, but no human-authored explanation of the marked obstruction and stable transfer is documented; Few is the evidence default.

Correction and publication history

2026-10-18 · publication

One four-dimensional example would refute Wall’s universal manifold-realization question for finitely presented integral PD groups.

Read this published revision