The space of short ropes and the classifying space of the space of long knots (Q1673639)

A short rope is a smooth embedding of the unit interval \([0,1]\) into \({\mathbb{R}}^3\) with fixed end points \((0,0,0)\) and \((1,0,0)\) and length \(<3\). A long knot is a smooth embedding \({\mathbb{R}}\hookrightarrow {\mathbb{R}}^3\) that coincides with the standard inclusion outside a compact set. Equip the space of long knots, denoted by \(\text{Emb}({\mathbb{R}}, {\mathbb{R}}^3)\), with the \(C^\infty\)-topology. Then \(\pi_0( \text{Emb}({\mathbb{R}}, {\mathbb{R}}^3) )\) is a free commutative monoid with respect to the connected sum. In [Topology 41, No. 3, 435--450 (2002; Zbl 1031.57011)], \textit{J. Mostovoy} proved that the fundamental group of the space of short ropes is isomorphic to the group completion of \(\pi_0( \text{Emb}({\mathbb{R}}, {\mathbb{R}}^3) )\). Mostovoy's result led him to ask whether the space of short ropes is a classifying space \(B\text{Emb}({\mathbb{R}}, {\mathbb{R}}^3)\) of the space of long knots. In this paper, the authors answer the question affirmatively. They prove that the space of short ropes is weakly homotopy equivalent to \(B\text{Emb}({\mathbb{R}}, {\mathbb{R}}^3)\). The authors use a technique introduced by \textit{S. Galatius} and \textit{O. Randal-Williams} [Geom. Topol. 14, No. 3, 1243--1302 (2010; Zbl 1205.55007)] to construct a manifold space model for \(B\text{Emb}({\mathbb{R}}, {\mathbb{R}}^3)\). They then introduce the notion of reducible ropes and prove the main result by showing that both the manifold space model and the space of short ropes are weakly homotopy equivalent to the space of reducible ropes.