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Extending existing work in small dimensions, Dessai computed the Euler characteristic, signature, and elliptic genus for [Formula: see text]-manifolds of positive sectional curvature in the presence of torus symmetry. He also computes the diffeomorphism type by restricting his results to classes of manifolds known to admit non-negative curvature, such as biquotients. The first part of this paper extends Dessai’s calculations to even dimensions up to [Formula: see text]. In particular, we obtain a first characterization of the Cayley plane in such a setting. The second part studies a closely related family of manifolds called positively elliptic manifolds, and we prove a conjecture of Halperin in this context for dimensions up to [Formula: see text] or Euler characteristics up to [Formula: see text]. 

A rational projective plane ([Formula: see text]) is a simply connected, smooth, closed manifold [Formula: see text] such that [Formula: see text]. An open problem is to classify the dimensions at which such a manifold exists. The Barge–Sullivan rational surgery realization theorem provides necessary and sufficient conditions that include the Hattori–Stong integrality conditions on the Pontryagin numbers. In this paper, we simplify these conditions and combine them with the signature equation to give a single quadratic residue equation that determines whether a given dimension supports a [Formula: see text]. We then confirm the existence of a [Formula: see text] in two new dimensions and prove several non-existence results using factorization of the numerators of the divided Bernoulli numbers. We also resolve the existence question in the Spin case, and we discuss existence results for the more general class of rational projective spaces.