On the quotient shapes of topological spaces (Q1709060)

This paper is a natural resumption of the author's previous works [Glas. Mat., III. Ser. 51, No. 2, 255--306 (2016; Zbl 1410.54021); Rad Hrvat. Akad. Znan. Umjet., Mat. Znan. 532, No. 21, 179--203 (2017; Zbl 1390.54034)]. Beginning with the first cited paper [Zbl 1410.54021], the author establishes his program of ``giving a new life for shape theory''. Namely, shape theory ([\textit{K. Borsuk}, Theory of shape. Warszawa: PWN - Polish Scientific Publishers (1975; Zbl 0317.55006)]) was considered so far as an extension of homotopy theory to all (even locally bad) topological spaces. But its applications remained in topology only. The present author introduced the quotient shape theory which can be applied to any concrete category and any infinite cardinal. The basic idea is to approximate objects of any concrete category by suitable inverse systems consisting of quotient objects having cardinality less than (or equal to) a given one. This leads to interesting applications of quotient shape theory to some other mathematical fields besides topology. This strategy yields new classifications in every concrete category (which admits sufficiently many non-trivial quotients). In the second cited paper [Zbl 1390.54034] the author applied this approach to vector spaces and normed vector spaces. In the present paper the quotient shape of all topological spaces is considered. It turns out that the quotient shape type classification on a q-admissible subcategory \(A\subseteq\mathrm{Top}\) coincides with the classification induced by homeomorphisms (Theorem 6), for any cardinal \(\kappa\geq \aleph_0\). Here a q-admissible subcategory of Top means every full subcategory of Top which is closed with respect to quotient spaces, e.g. the category Top, the category of all connected spaces, the category of all discrete spaces, and others. The author also provides several examples of subcategories for which the quotient shape classification is strictly coarser than the classification by homeomorphisms.