Universal based-free involutions (Q2125145)

A continuous involution on a topological space is said to be \textit{based-free} if it has a unique fixed point. The paper under review is related to an old, still unsolved, problem posed by \textit{R. D. Anderson} [Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 72, 515--519 (1966; Zbl 0137.09703)] who asked whether all based-free involutions on the Hilbert cube \(Q = [-1,1]^{\omega}\) are conjugate. According to a result of \textit{S. A. Antonyan} [Math. Notes 65, No. 2, 135--143 (1999; Zbl 0940.57041); translation from Mat. Zametki 65, No. 2, 163--174 (1999)], for every compact metrizable space \(K\) with a based-free involution \(\tau\) there exists an embedding \(h\) from \(K\) into \(Q\) such that \(h(\tau(x)) = -h(x)\) for all \(x \in K\). The authors of the present paper prove two similar results. The first of them shows that the (separable infinite-dimensional) Hilbert space \(\ell_2\) equipped with the standard based-free involution \(\sigma\) (that assigns to each vector \(x\) its opposite, \(-x\)) is universal for all separable metrizable spaces with based-free involutions, whereas in the second the authors characterize spaces with involutions that can be equivariantly embedded into the space \(\mathbb{R}^{\omega}\) with the standard based-free involution \(\rho\). In particular, \((\ell_2,\sigma)\) does not embed into \((\mathbb{R}^{\omega},\rho)\).