Sequential motion planning algorithms in real projective spaces: an approach to their immersion dimension (Q1743448)

Let \(\text{TC}_s(X)\) be the \(s\)th higher (also sequential) topological complexity (\(\text{TC}\)) of \(X\), due to \textit{Y. B. Rudyak} [Topology Appl. 157, 916--920 (2010; Zbl 1187.55001)]. This is a natural generalization of Farber's \(\text{TC}_2(X)\); see, for instance, [\textit{M. Farber}, Discrete Comput. Geom. 29, 211--221 (2003; Zbl 1038.68130)]. The authors give a detailed analysis of the gap between homotopical methods from above and homological methods from below for real projective \(m\)-space, \(X=\mathbb R P^m\). By cohomological methods, the authors prove, for instance: the inequalities \(0\leq \delta_s(m) \leq 2^{e(m)} -1\) hold provided \(s\geq \ell(m)\). Here \(\ell(m)=\max\{(m+1)/2^{e(m)},2\}\) and \(e(m)\) stands for the length of the block of consecutive ones ending the binary expansion of \(m\) (e.g., \(e(m) = 0\) if \(m\) is even). In particular, \(\delta_s(m)=0\), so that \(\text{TC}_s(\mathbb RP^m) = sm\), if \(m\) is even and \(s > m\). The first goal of this paper is to show that a large portion of the initial elements in the sequence \({\delta_{\ell(m)}}(m), {\delta_{\ell(m)-1}}(m), \dots, {\delta_2}(m)\) remain well controlled, in the sense that they satisfy the inequality \(\delta_s(m) \leq 2^{e(m)} -1\). The second aim is to present an alternative characterization for each of the numbers in the monotonic sequence \(\dots \geq \text{TC}_s(\mathbb RP^m)\geq \text{TC}_{s-1}(\mathbb RP^m)\geq \dots \geq \text{TC}_{2}(\mathbb RP^m)\). The results of the article are analysed (in Section 7) with the perspective of the Euclidean immersion problem for \(\mathbb R P^m\).