Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2021/iii/paper-127/4/solution

The space is a classifying space . The periodic resolution of a finite cyclic group gives
Thus positive odd cohomology vanishes and every positive even group is .
Let be odd. If , transfer makes multiplication by both zero and invertible on positive-degree cohomology, so
If , restriction to the cyclic Sylow -subgroup and transfer give
For , one may take , where is the mod- Bockstein homomorphism.
For the second part put and . The long exact homotopy sequence of the homotopy fibre of gives
and for . Therefore is a and .
Regard it as the fibration
Write
and write for the degree-one and degree-two generators of the fibre. The fibration is classified by , so in its cohomological Serre spectral sequence
The Kudo transgression theorem and the mod- Bockstein give
Consequently has basis , while has the four surviving classes represented by
If were abelian, an abelian group of order mapping onto would be either or . The first has three-dimensional ; the second has two-dimensional but three-dimensional . Both contradict the dimensions just calculated. Hence is nonabelian.

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