Fundamental groups of locally connected subsets of the plane (Q1735475)

Let $f: X \to Y$ be a continuous map. It is a basic fact that $f$ induces a homomorphism $g$ between the fundamental groups. The converse, however, holds only in specific cases, for example if $X$ is a CW complex and $Y$ is aspherical. When $X$ and $Y$ are $1$-dimensional Peano continua, Eda proved that each homomorphism $g$ is induced by a continuous map $f$ up to conjugation. A variant of this result including planar Peano continua as range is the main result of this paper (Theorem A): Every homomorphism from the fundamental group of a $1$-dimensional Peano continuum to that of a planar Peano continuum is induced by a continuous map, up to change of base point. Theorem A was known to hold in case $X$ is a planar Peano continuum and $Y$ is either a planar or $1$-dimensional Peano continuum [\textit{C. Kent}, Pac. J. Math. 295, No. 1, 43--55 (2018; Zbl 1495.57010)]. \par It is worth mentioning two technical tools used in the paper. The first is the concept of homotopy fixed points, i.e., points, fixed by any map $Z\to Z$ homotopic to the identity. It turns out that if $Z$ is a planar Peano continuum, then these points are precisely the points at which the space is not locally simply connected. Furthermore, such points are completely determined by the structure of the fundamental group. The other technical tool is a representation of a homotopy type of a path (or loop) in a planar Peano continuum by a distinguished short representative.