Isotopies vis-à-vis level-preserving embeddings (Q1692352)

For compact smooth manifolds \(Q,M\) every smooth homotopy \(F:Q\times I\to M\times I\) through smooth embeddings is itself a smooth embedding. The paper presents an example showing that this assertion is false for non-compact smooth manifolds: there is a smooth map \(F:(0,+\infty)\times[0,1]\to\mathbb R^2\) such that \(\bullet\) \(F|_{(0,+\infty)\times t}\) is a smooth embedding for each \(t\in[0,1]\); \(\bullet\) for the projection \(p:(0,+\infty)\times[0,1]\to[0,1]\) the map \(F\times p:(0,+\infty)\times[0,1]\to\mathbb R^2\times[0,1]\) is not a smooth embedding, although it is a smooth immersion and is injective. `This observation is not new, but apparently not nearly as well known as it ought to be.' See also ``The manifold atlas project, Isotopy'', \url{http://www.map.mpim-bonn.mpg.de/Isotopy}.