Whitney preserving functions (Q1868027)

For a continuum \(X\), \(C(X)\) denotes the space of all subcontinua of \(X\) with the topology generated by the Hausdorff metric. A continuous real-valued function \(\mu\) on \(C(X)\) satisfying (1) if \(A,B\in C(X)\) and \(A\) is a proper subset of \(B\), then \(\mu(A) < \mu(B)\), and (2) for each \(x\in X\), \(\mu (\{x\}) =0\), is called a Whitney map. The author defines Whitney preserving and hereditarily Whitney preserving maps in the following way. Let \(X\) and \(Y\) be continua and let \(f:X\to Y\) be a continuous map. Then \(f\) is said to be Whitney preserving if there are Whitney maps \(\mu:C(X)\to \mathbb{R}\) and \(\nu:C(Y)\to \mathbb{R}\) such that for each \(s\in [0,\mu(X)]\) and \(A_s\in C(X)\), \(f(A_s)=B_t\) for some \(t \in [0,\nu(Y)]\). \(f\) is hereditarily Whitney preserving if for each \(Z \in C(X)\), \(f\restriction Z:Z\to f(Z)\) is Whitney preserving. Some properties of these maps are studied. For example: If \(X\) is a continuum containing a dense arc component, then every Whitney preserving map from \(X\) into the closed unit interval is a homeomorphism.