Embeddings from the point of view of immersion theory. I (Q1296206)

Let \(M\) and \(N\) be smooth manifolds without boundary. The author develops a suitable calculus of the cofunctors \(V \to \text{emb}(V,N)\) from the poset (category) of open subsets \(V\) of \(M\) to spaces. The work has been inspired by \textit{T. G. Goodwillie}'s calculus of homotopy functors expounded in a series of papers [e.g., K-Theory 4, No. 1, 1-27 (1990; Zbl 0741.57021)], but it is not a special case. The study of such cofunctors are of potential importance to obtain an understanding of the space of smooth embeddings \(\text{emb}(M,N)\). As a main result, the author explicitly determines the terms in certain Taylor series for the cofunctors \(V \to \text{emb}(V,N)\).