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Nilpotency for discrete groups can be defined in terms of central extensions. In this paper, the analogous definition for spaces is stated in terms of principal fibrations having infinite loop spaces as fibers, yielding a new invariant between the classical LS cocategory and the more recent notion of homotopy nilpotency introduced by Biedermann and Dwyer. This allows us to characterize finite homotopy nilpotent loop spaces in the spirit of Hubbuck’s Torus Theorem, and obtain corresponding results for p-compact groups and p-Noetherian groups.

We introduce the so-called doubling metric on the collection of non-empty bounded open subsets of a metric space. Given an open subset U of a metric space X, the predecessor U_∗ of U is defined by doubling the radii of all open balls contained inside U, and taking their union. The predecessor of U is an open set containing U. The directed doubling distance between U and another subset V is the number of times that the predecessor operation needs to be applied to U to obtain a set that contains V. Finally, the doubling distance between open sets U and V is the maximum of the directed distance between U and V and the directed distance between V and U.

We prove that the 61-sphere has a unique smooth structure. Following results of Moise [35], Kervaire-Milnor [25], Browder [10] and Hill-Hopkins-Ravenel [19], we show that the only odd dimensional spheres with a unique smooth structure are S1, S3, S5 and S61.

The E_1-term of the (2-local) bo-based Adams spectral sequence for the sphere spectrum decomposes into a direct sum of a v_1-periodic part, and a v_1-torsion part. Lellmann and Mahowald completely computed the d_1-differential on the v_1-periodic part, and the corresponding contribution to the E_2-term. The v_1-torsion part is harder to handle, but with the aid of a computer it was computed through the 20-stem by Davis. Such computer computations are limited by the exponential growth of v_1-torsion in the E_1-term. In this paper, we introduce a new method for computing the contribution of the v_1-torsion part to the E_2-term, whose input is the cohomology of the Steenrod algebra. We demonstrate the efficacy of our technique by computing the bo-Adams spectral sequence beyond the 40-stem.