Simply and tangentially homotopy equivalent but non-homeomorphic homogeneous manifolds

Abstract

For each odd integer r greater than one and not divisible by three we give explicit examples of infinite families of simply and tangentially homotopy equivalent but pairwise non-homeomorphic closed homogeneous spaces with fundamental group isomorphic to Z/r. As an application we construct the first examples of manifolds which possess infinitely many metrics of nonnegative sectional curvature with pairwise non-homeomorphic homogeneous souls of codimension three with trivial normal bundle, such that their curvatures and the diameters of the souls are uniformly bounded. These manifolds are the first examples of manifolds fulfilling such geometric conditions and they serve as solutions to a problem posed by I. Belegradek, S. Kwasik and R. Schultz.