Algebraic fundamental groups of fake projective planes

Abstract

Fundamental groups of fake projective planes fall into fifty distinct isomorphism classes, one for each complex conjugate pair. We prove that this is not the case for their algebraic fundamental groups: there are only forty-six isomorphism classes. We show that there are four pairs of complex conjugate pairs of fake projective planes that are $\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbb{C})$-equivalent and hence have mutually isomorphic algebraic fundamental groups. All other pairs of algebraic fundamental groups are shown to be distinct through explicit finite étale covers. As a by-product, this provides the first examples of commensurable but nonisomorphic lattices in a rank one semisimple Lie group that have isomorphic profinite completions.