634 vertex-transitive and more than $10^{103}$ non-vertex-transitive 27-vertex triangulations of manifolds like the octonionic projective plane

Abstract: In 1987 Brehm and K\"uhnel showed that any combinatorial $d$-manifold with less than $3d/2+3$ vertices is PL homeomorphic to the sphere and any combinatorial $d$-manifold with exactly $3d/2+3$ vertices is PL homeomorphic to either the sphere or a manifold like a projective plane in the sense of Eells and Kuiper. The latter possibility may occur for $d\in{2,4,8,16}$ only. There exist a unique $6$-vertex triangulation of $\mathbb{RP}^2$, a unique $9$-vertex triangulation of $\mathbb{CP}^2$, and at least three $15$-vertex triangulations of $\mathbb{HP}^2$. However, until now, the question of whether there exists a $27$-vertex triangulation of a manifold like the octonionic projective plane has remained open. We solve this problem by constructing a lot of examples of such triangulations. Namely, we construct $634$ vertex-transitive $27$-vertex combinatorial $16$-manifolds like the octonionic projective plane. Four of them have symmetry group $\mathrm{C}3^3\rtimes \mathrm{C}{13}$ of order $351$, and the other $630$ have symmetry group $\mathrm{C}3^3$ of order $27$. Further, we construct more than $10^{103}$ non-vertex-transitive $27$-vertex combinatorial $16$-manifolds like the octonionic projective plane. Most of them have trivial symmetry group, but there are also symmetry groups $\mathrm{C}_3$, $\mathrm{C}_3^2$, and $\mathrm{C}{13}$. We conjecture that all the triangulations constructed are PL homeomorphic to the octonionic projective plane $\mathbb{OP}^2$. Nevertheless, we have no proof of this fact so far.