We show that for an oriented 4-dimensional Poincaré complex X with finite fundamental group, whose 2-Sylow subgroup is abelian with at most 2 generators, the homotopy type of X is determined by its quadratic 2-type.

Inspired by a remarkable work of Félix, Halperin, and Thomas on the asymptotic estimation of the ranks of rational homotopy groups, and more recent works of Wu and the authors on local hyperbolicity, we prove two asymptotic formulae for torsion rank of homotopy groups, one using ordinary homology and one using K-theory. We use these to obtain explicit quantitative asymptotic lower bounds on the torsion rank of the homotopy groups for many interesting spaces after suspension, including Moore spaces, Eilenberg–MacLane spaces, complex projective spaces, complex Grassmannians, Milnor hypersurfaces, and unitary groups.

Ganea proved that the loop space of $\mathbb{C} P^n$ is homotopy commutative if and only if $n=3$ . We generalize this result to that the loop spaces of all irreducible Hermitian symmetric spaces but $\mathbb{C} P^3$ are not homotopy commutative. The computation also applies to determining the homotopy nilpotency class of the loop spaces of generalized flag manifolds $G/T$ for a maximal torus T of a compact, connected Lie group G.

We determine the (non-)triviality of Samelson products of inclusions of factors of the mod p decomposition of $G_{(p)}$ for $(G,p)=(E_7,5),(E_7,7),(E_8,7)$. This completes the determination of the (non-)triviality of those Samelson products in p-localized exceptional Lie groups when G has p-torsion-free homology.

For certain pairs of Lie groups (G, H) and primes p, Harris showed a relation of the p-localized homotopy groups of G and H. This is reinterpreted as a p-local homotopy equivalence G ≃ (p)H × G/H, and so there is a projection G(p) → H(p). We show how much this projection preserves the higher homotopy associativity.

A Lie group is called p-regular if it has the p-local homotopy type of a product of spheres. (Non)triviality of the Samelson products of the inclusions of the factor spheres into p-regular SO(2n(p) is determined, which completes the list of (non)triviality of such Samelson products in p-regular simple Lie groups. As an application, we determine the homotopy normality of the inclusion SO(2n − 1) → SO(2n) in the sense of James at any prime p.