The equivariant LS-category of polar actions (Q1004033)

Given a space \(X\), a subset \(U\) is categorical if it is contractible in \(X\). The Lusternik-Schnirelmann category (LS-category) of \(X\), denoted by \(\mathrm{cat}(X)\), is the least integer \(n\) such that \(X\) can be covered with \(n+1\) open categorical open subsets. When \(X\) is a \(G\)-space, there is a related notion of equivariant category \(\mathrm{cat}_G(X)\), defined using \(G\)-categorical open subsets. Note that the authors' definition is equal to the conventional LS-category plus one. As a direct computation of the LS-category is difficult, it is rather convenient to find bounds for it. If a Lie group \(G\) acts properly on a manifold \(M\), the authors show that the number of components of the fixed point set is a lower bound for \(\mathrm{cat}_G(M)\). For polar actions, an upper bound is given in terms of the equivariant category of its generalized Weyl group. As an application, the authors recover the results of Singhof on the LS-category of \( U(n) \) and \(SU(n)\).