An upper bound for higher topological complexity and higher strongly equivariant complexity (Q2182468)

The topological complexity, \(\mbox{TC}(X)\), of a space \(X\) is defined as the sectional category (or Schwarz genus) of the end-points evaluation fibration \(p:PX\rightarrow X\times X,\hspace{10pt}\alpha \mapsto (\alpha (0),\alpha (1))\) (here, \(PX\) denotes the free path space \(X^I\) equipped with the compact-open topology). This is a numerical homotopy invariant introduced by \textit{M. Farber} [Discrete Comput. Geom. 29, No. 2, 211--221 (2003; Zbl 1038.68130)] in order to study the topological instabilities in any motion planning algorithm in robotics. Later on, higher analogs of topological complexity, denoted by \(\mbox{TC}_n(X)\) for \(n\geq 2\) were introduced in [\textit{Y. B. Rudyak}, Topology Appl. 157, No. 5, 916--920 (2010; Zbl 1187.55001)] in such a way that we recover \(\mbox{TC}(X)\) for \(n=2.\) It is related to motion planning algorithms in which a robot is to move through an ordered sequence of \(n\) locations. In general, \(\mbox{TC}_n(X)\) is hard to compute so a good strategy is to consider other invariants that could bound it from above or from below. Following this spirit, in the paper under review the authors prove the following upper bound, which is a clear generalization of a result by \textit{M. Farber} et al. [ibid. 255, 109--125 (2019; Zbl 1410.55002)] and where \(\mbox{TC}^{\mathcal{D}}_n(X)\) denotes the higher analogue of \(\mathcal{D}\)-topological complexity [\textit{M. Farber} and \textit{J. Oprea}, ibid. 258, 142--160 (2019; Zbl 1412.55003)]. Theorem. Let \(X\) be a finite dimensional simplicial complex whose universal cover \(\widetilde{X}\) is \(r\)-connected. Then, for any \(n\geq 2\) the following inequality holds: \[ \mbox{TC}_n(X)\leq \mbox{TC}^{\mathcal{D}}_n(X)+\left \lceil{\frac{n\hspace{2pt}\mbox{dim}(X)-r}{r+1}}\right \rceil \] Under not very restrictive conditions for \(X\), \(\mbox{TC}^{\mathcal{D}}_n(X)\) is a lower bound of \(\mbox{TC}_n(X)\) and they coincide when in addition \(X\) is aspherical. As a consequence of this theorem the inequality \(\mbox{TC}_n(X)\leq \mbox{TC}_n(\pi )+\left \lceil{\frac{n\dim(X)-1}{2}}\right \rceil\) is obtained, where \(\mbox{TC}_n(\pi ):=\mbox{TC}_n(K(\pi ,1))\) is the \(n\)-th topological complexity of \(K(\pi ,1)\) the Eilenberg-MacLane space of type \((\pi ,1)\), \(\pi \) being the fundamental group of \(X.\) As pointed out by the authors, this is the higher version of a result given by \textit{A. Dranishnikov} [ibid. 179, 74--80 (2015; Zbl 1304.55003)]. In order to prove the theorem above an intermediate invariant \(\widetilde{TC}_n(X)\) is introduced. For their purposes it is also introduced \(\mbox{TC}^*_{n,G}(X)\), a higher analogue of strongly equivariant complexity in the sense of A. Dranishnikov, and it is proved that, for locally finite CW-complexes, the equality \(\widetilde{TC}_n(X)=\mbox{TC}^*_{n,\pi }(\widetilde{X})\) holds (here \(\widetilde{X}\) stands for the universal cover of \(X\) with the action of the fundamental group \(\pi =\pi _1(X)\)). Similarly as done by A. Dranishnikov, the authors also use higher strongly equivariant complexity in order to give an upper bound for higher topological complexity of the total space of a fiber bundle.