PL fibrator properties of partially aspherical manifolds (Q1882921)

An approximate fibration is a proper map \(p: M \rightarrow B\) that has an approximate homotopy lifting property. The notion of closeness is that two maps \(f,g\) into \(X \rightarrow B\) are \(\Omega\)-close if given an open cover \(\Omega\) of \(B\) then for each \(x \in X\) the corresponds a set \(U_{x} \in \Omega\) with \(\{f(x), g(x)\} \subset U_{x}\). A proper map \(p: M \rightarrow B\) between a connected PL \((n+k)\)-manifold and a space \(B\) such that each \(p^{-1}(b)\) has the homotopy type of a closed connected n-manifold is called a codimension-\(k\) map. If \(N\) is a fixed PL \(n\)-manifold, \(M\) is a PL manifold, \(B\) is a polyhedron and each \(p^{-1}\) collapses to an \(n\)-complex homotopy equivalent to \(N\), the map is called \(N\)-like. A PL \(n\)-manifold is a codimension-\(k\) PL \(m\)-fibrator if every codimension-\(k\) \(N\)-like PL map \(p: M^{n+k} \rightarrow B\) onto a PL \(k\)-manifold \(B\) is an approximate fibration. The results in this paper concern the fibrator properties of partially ashperical PL manifolds. In particular it is shown that the connected sum of certain t-aspherical manifolds is a codimension-\((2n-2)\) PL fibrator.