Topological complexity of \(n\) points on a tree (Q1743508)

The (non-normalized) topological complexity \(\mathrm{TC}(X)\) of a path-connected space \(X\) is defined as the smallest integer \(k\geq 1\) such that there is a cover of \(X\times X\) by open subsets \(\{U_1,\dots,U_k\}\) on each of which the path fibration \(P(X)\rightarrow X\times X\), \(\alpha \mapsto (\alpha (0),\alpha (1))\) has a local section. Here \(P(X)\) denotes the space of all paths in \(X\) equipped with the compact-open topology. This is a numerical homotopy invariant introduced by \textit{M. Farber} in [Discrete Comput. Geom. 29 No. 2, 211--221 (2003; Zbl 1038.68130)] in order to study the motion planning problem in robotics from a topological perspective. In the paper under review the author studies the topological complexity of \(C^n(\Gamma)\), the topological configuration space of \(n\) ordered points on a tree \(\Gamma \) (a connected graph which no cycles), and \(\mathrm{UC}^n(\Gamma )\), the unordered topological configuration space of \(n\) points on \(\Gamma \). In this sense, the author succeeds in determining \(\mathrm{TC}(C^n(\Gamma))\) and \(\mathrm{TC}(\mathrm{UC}^n(\Gamma))\) for a large collection of values of \(n\). Besides, for such values it is also seen that \(\mathrm{TC}(C^n(\Gamma))=\mathrm{TC}(\mathrm{UC}^n(\Gamma))\). Finally, he discusses and compares his results with \textit{M. Farber}'s, given in [``Configuration spaces and robot motion planning algorithms'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1701.02083}].