Diagonal involutions and the Borsuk-Ulam property for product of surfaces (Q2326948)

The classical Borsuk-Ulam Theorem states that for any continuous map \(f:\mathbb{S}^n \to \mathbb{R}^n\) there exists a point \(x \in \mathbb{S}^n\) such that \(f(x) = f(-x)\). There are numerous and far reaching generalizations of this wonderful theorem. One approach is to replace the sphere \(\mathbb{S}^n\) by a topological space \(X\) equipped with a free involution \(T\), and the euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^n\) by another topological space \(Y\). This leads to the following natural question: Given a continuous map \(f:X \to Y\), does there exist a point \(x \in X\) such that \(f(x) = f (T(x))\)? If the answer is positive for any continuous map from \(X\) to \(Y\), then the triple \((X,T;Y)\) is said to satisfy the Borsuk-Ulam property. The case of the triple \((M^n,T; \mathbb{R}^k)\), where \(M^n\) is a connected smooth \(n\)-dimensional manifold with a free involution \(T\), is of special interest and has been considered in the literature, particularly, in many works of the first author. The main problem is to find the largest natural number \(k\) (\(1 < k \le n\)) such that the Borsuk-Ulam property holds for the triple \((M^n,T; \mathbb{R}^k)\). Such natural number \(k\), denoted by \(i(M^n,T)\), is called the index of the pair \((M^n,T)\). This interesting paper under review investigates the case \(X=M^2 \times N^2\) equipped with the diagonal involution \(T \times S\), where \(T\) and \(S\) are free involutions on \(M^2\) and \(N^2\), respectively. Among other results, the authors prove that if \(i(M^2,T) = i(N^2,S) = 2\), then \(i(M^2 \times N^2,T \times S)=2\).